Buenos Aires’s public school secondary teachers and the unions that represent them are locked in a battle with the local government over job security and working conditions. The mechanisms that have historically allowed teachers to move from insecure to secure employment are breaking down. The city’s Ministry of Education and Innovation is also attempting to “modernize” the system that allocates administrative work to teachers. Together, these developments are worsening the conditions of teaching staff, already made difficult by the ongoing pandemic.

The ministry is taking advantage of the growing rates of precarious employment within Argentina to worsen teachers’ working conditions. The goal of these reforms is to save municipal government money by cutting the number of administrative staff in schools. What the ministry calls modernization really means ramping up teachers’ workloads while cutting jobs and reducing the security and work conditions of those kept in employment.

Two unions that organize teachers in Argentina have launched a rolling strike campaign in response to these changes. The first is the Union of Education Workers–Confederation of Education Workers of the Argentine Republic (Unión de Trabajadores de la Educación–Confederación de Trabajadores de la Educación de la República Argentina, UTE-CTERA), which is the largest labor organization affiliated to the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina, CTA). Its leadership is aligned with the movement inspired by Nestor Kirchner, Argentina’s center-left populist president who governed the country from 2003 to 2007. The UTE-CTERA also has member unions aligned with traditional Peronism, the Communist Party, and other socialist tendencies.