Are Argentine education strikes justified?

Ryan_m_b

Two points: firstly such a law would be almost impossible to write as it would have to define appropriate working conditions and whilst the law does protect workers with things like minimum wage, health and safety etc it can't say whether or not government policies are fair. Secondly you have to consider the long term public good otherwise that's an argument against any public sector strike. It could be that this strike is successful, increases resources to education and increases societal well-being as a result.
Striking is a form of practical democracy. A democratic society cannot maintain itself simply by voting (unless you are advocating some sort of direct democracy), there must be other avenues. I don't know how it is in the US but in the UK for a strike to be legal various checks have to be completed such as a vote being put forth to all members about whether or not to strike. Finally if they do strike and their position is against public will then the strike will fail, this is democracy in action! If a sector threatened to maintain a strike for a long time and public will was against it then political will would work around it by providing alternate infrastructure e.g. if fire fighters strike the military are bought in. At the end of the day a striking labour force cannot succeed against public will.

Arpegius

I've been reading your answers for the past weeks; thank you all for the feedback you provided. I've come to the conclusion that perhaps I was overreacting, and that moralism is useless when it is seen as a weakness by politicians. Desperate times justify desperate actions, and I guess our deficient government forced their hand.

The national strike lasted several days, and even today some provinces and universities continue to sporadically strike. The last offer from within the government was a monthly minimum base salary of 2800 AR$ (That's about 609 USD$/month, with an interannual inflation rate of about 30% and a 2011 fiscal deficit of 34 Billion AR$). The teacher's syndicate is currently evaluating whether to accept the terms or continue striking.

Yes, Kirchnerism has been inflating the Falklands/Malvinas issue by the use empty nationalism in order to divert the public's attention from our socio-economical decline. Same thing the dictatorship did several decades ago. It seems we people never learn.

Sadly, this isn't true in Argentina. Several large-scale construction projects have been used by our government to launder money. Political parties affiliated to Kirchnerism receive ample money incentives (just to name an example, some students in my university get a monthly 8.000 - 12.000 AR$ for voting in favour of a particular student-political-party's projects) and so do the people that gather to support our president's speeches and clap to them (yes, they are paid to clap at her). Moreover, 1 Billion AR$ are wasted on subsidies to televised soccer and rally, and partial TV shows that portrait their party as the best one this country has ever had. In a nutshell: The money's there, it's only being used to promote their own goals instead of the country's.

This is, for the vast majority of our population, not a valid option. The working class, on average, needs to work all day, and home-schooling is expensive as hell.

I'm not completely sure, but I think there's no tenure system system in Argentina (certainly not for sub-university education). Truck drivers have a strong syndicate here (maybe too strong) and they get a salary many, many times higher than that of a teacher. When they feel such wage is not enough, they unanimously strike all across our land and our economy paralyzes. Same can be said for the workers on the subway of Buenos Aires, and they behave similarly.