This morning, Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral flights out of Aeroparque Jorge Newberry and Ezeiza International Airport were delayed or cancelled in anticipation of aviation personal action held this morning. At least 15 flights were affected in Aeroparque Jorge Newberry alone. As of 9am this morning, flights have been departing as scheduled, but with an average delay of two hours. Members of five aviation unions met at the airports this morning to demand salary increases, among other items, from the airlines.

The Association of Aviation Personnel (APA) denies responsibility for the complications and instead blamed an “employer’s lock out” between the hours of 5.30am and 8am.

Aerolíneas Argentinas issued a press statement, explaining that the itineraries had been rescheduled because “the union meeting announced and planned for 5am this morning was going to impede normal flight dispatches in the early morning”. It continued by asserting, “Had the company failed to adopt these preventative measures, the meeting that inevitably interrupts or delays services would have affected the entire day’s programming, consequently causing harm to the passengers.” Ultimately, six Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral flights were successfully rescheduled or consolidated. Aerolíneas Argentinas added that passengers were notified yesterday of the changes in travel itineraries.

Union members have decided to use industrial actions to demand a salary raise of 10% of airlines. “We are not ruling out any measures,” declared Edgardo Llano, APA Secretary Genearl. “If we have to arrive at a strike, it could announced or unannounced, but we don’t want to harm passengers any more than what a strike would cause.” These comments retract promises made earlier last week denying the possibility of a strike. Conflicts have built since last March, when wage negotiations were suspended.

Participating unions include the APA, the Superior Personal and Commercial Aviation Company Professionals’ Union (UPSA), the Association of Airline Pilots (APLA), the Argentine Crewmembers’ Association (AAA), and the Airline Aviators’ Union (UALA).

Union actions echo those made by air traffic controllers last July, which caused massive disruptions for passengers at both Ezeiza International Airport and Aeroparque Jorge Newberry.

Union representatives will meet today with the Ministry of Labour to attempt to resolve the conflict.

Five airline unions announced today that they will be taking industrial action starting Monday after failing to agree on salary increases with the employees of the National Administration of Civil Aviation (ANAC).

The action is expect to affect all commercial flights in the country.

“We are not talking about a strike. We are going to be taking industrial assemblies that will unfortunately affect passengers,” said Marcelo Uhrich, press secretary for The Union of Senior Airline Company Staff and Professionals. “This is not our objective, but the workers cannot take it anymore. It has been six months since wage negotiations ended.”

Wage negotiations have been suspended since 31st March, according to Uhrich. The airline companies “have offered a 19% increase, a joke. We have exhausted dialogue without an agreement.”

A union spokesman said that the following groups will be taking industrial action: the Union of Senior Airline Company Staff and Professions (UPSA), the Aeronautical Staff Association (APA), the Airline Pilot Association (APLA) and the Argentina Association of Air Navigation (AAA) together with the Union of Airline Airmen (UALA).

“There are circumstantial problems and many factors that have led to this crisis,” the spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, during the last six months there have been several meetings but the groups could not make an agreement.

“Unfortunately we could not close the gap. The situation has elevated to unacceptable levels for the aviation workers,” the spokesman said.

The Association of State Workers (ATE) announced today that they will stop work next Thursday, 13th September, and congregate outside Buenos Aires City Government buildings in protest of recent government reforms.

The concentration of the demonstration will be held outside the Ministry of Modernization after they recently brought forward a provision, which would have required the workers of public offices to ask permission to create assemblies, this was however suspended by a judge last Monday.

“[The suspension of this by a judge] gives us the right to reject provision 40 of the Ministry of Modernization which was intended to allow them to decide whether or not we can make assemblies in our own workplaces,” said Humberto Rodríguez, the secretary general of the ATE this morning.

The workers are also striking against what they call the “persecution of state workers,” and a “precarisation at work.” Precarisation is defined as an increasing change of previously guaranteed permanent employment conditions into mainly worse paid and uncertain jobs. They also want to reopen negotiations with the government in regards to salary increases.

“In previous negotiations the [government] put forward a clause to reopen talks in August if inflation rose sharply, but there’s been no sign of [reopening negotiations],” said Rodríguez.

Rodríguez had previously threatened a strike on the 28th August when he said that “the province of Buenos Aires is an immensely rich province and as demonstrated by previous strikes, when workers mobilize silver appears.”

Rodríguez warned that there is a “criminalization of social protests in the city of Buenos Aires,” and that the decision of the city government is a “severe media siege.” He requested “there is respect for the laws and judgments of the Justice,” because, “[the government] cannot continue to persecute those who think differently, that is exercising arrogance and authoritarianism.”

Rodríguez made the announcement this morning in a press conference held at the trade union’s headquarters on Carlos Calvo 1378.

Unions in Brazil representing almost 90% of public sector workers who have been striking since May have agreed to return to work next Monday.

The Brazilian government released a statement today saying most of the public workers had accepted a 15.8% increase in wages over three years in order to cover inflation.

According to the BBC, Brazil’s Planning Ministry said an agreement had been reached with 30 of the 35 different state unions. The federal police and tax inspectors among a few others rejected the deal.

The more than 400,000 federal workers began striking in May when teachers stopped working, demanding higher pay and better career prospects. Other state employees in one of the country’s largest ever-industrial disputes quickly joined them resulting in almost half of the public workforce being on strike.

The protestors were demanding wage increases anywhere from four to 150 percent.

While most of the public sector had managed to function normally, the strikes sporadically crippled airports, public hospitals, roads and ports.

Travelers were often greeted at airports and ports with protestor’s signs and picket lines. Despite the government’s pleas to return to work and warnings about state security, strikers continued to protest for another four months.

One banner draped across a road read, “Federal Police station closed — free passage for drug trafficking and weapons.”

The striking couldn’t have come at a worse time for President Dilma Rousseff and her Workers’ Party, which actually began as a union movement. The administration feared increasing the wages by more than 15.8% because of the threat it might pose to several policy goals, including driving down interest rates. Rousseff is also releasing the budget on Friday.

The government said it will re-open negotiations with those unions that rejected the deal.

As the subte strike continues into its 10th day, Néstor Segovia, assistant secretary of the Trade Union of Subte and Premetro Workers (AGTSyP), said there is a “light of hope” in the conflict. Segovia told media he sees the possibility of there being a resolution to the strike by the end of the day.

Segovia also says there is the possibility of a truce, so long as workers receive positive responses to their demands.

In the longest subte strike in Argentina’s history, which has shut down services to the city’s six lines, workers are asking for a 28% pay increase and better working conditions. Roberto Pianelli, secretary-general of AGTSyP, said workers were willing to discard the wage negotiation issue, so long as working conditions were addressed.

On Saturday, the City government announced compulsory conciliation, a $5m fine for the union, and a lawsuit threat. AGTSyP rejected the conciliation and fine.

The subte strike has affected some 900,000 of the city’s commuters who use the subte each day.

Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri said he saw “no way out” of the subte conflict, and because the union has close ties with the national government, said the strike is an attack on the City.

It’s Friday again!

And if you live in Buenos Aires, chances are you’re pissed off right now.

It’s been the worst week ever in this city. Dreadful weather. Nightmarish traffic. A seven-day, record-breaking subway strike, and on top of that Nick Carter is in town.

Oh, don’t worry, I had to google him too.

This is an insult to your porteño-centric view of the world. Buenos Aires ain’t the expat sanctuary it once used to be, is it? I mean Nick Carter, really?

What is this, a cruise for singles headed to Saint Kitts and Nevis, or any of those other Caribbean islands with the pretentious names?

And those kids from One Direction should take a hint and exploit their current fame as much as they can. Because one moment you’re selling thousands of seats for the Madison Square Garden and BAM! Ten years later your selling less than ten tickets for the Gran Rex Theater in Buenos Aires and people find out you’re in town thanks to this shitty column.

You’re welcome.

Please don’t forget to like the Weekly News Roundup on Facebook so you can keep up with future columns.

This is what you need to know:

• 

  Buenos Aires this week, as seen through your window. (Photo/Wikipedia)

  Oh, boy. We’re never going to hear the end of this. In a controversial speech this week, the Queen of Diversity and also President of this country, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner finally put us all smug Europeans in a corner and called us for what we really are: a bunch of racist idiots. Oh, yes, she did. But let me give you some context information, because otherwise it sounds horrible:

• While opening a new school for the Qom indigenous community in the Chaco province so they’re distracted with something and finally stop bothering her, she started talking to Chaco governor Jorge Capitanich about how even though he looks indigenous his ancestors are actually from “xenophobic” Europe. As some in the audience squirmed in their seats, she doubled down by saying “What!? Europeans are all xenophobic!”. Half a second later she realized of her egregious fuck up and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m never going to hear the end of this tomorrow!” The bunch of seals applauding in the audience kind of agreed.

• After buying some time, she non-apologized by saying she had never said what she said two minutes earlier and clarified that she also comes from European ancestors, although “we must admit that there’s an important part of Europe that has a xenophobic component.” To prove her point, she mentioned the Inquisition. It’s like being in a history class! Only the teacher is drunk.

• My favorite part is when they start discussing Hugo Chávez’s ethnicity. “He’s kind of a half-breed, isn’t he? He’s half-indigenous and something else?”. Fortunately, Domestic Trade Secretary Guillermo Moreno was sitting in the audience and contributed by saying “Africa! Because he’s got curly hair!” Ha! Someone should give these people a reality show.

• But not all is lost with Cristina, because this week she finally had it with the press making up stories about her, and as she attended the opening ceremony of some new YPF technobabble technique used to increase hydrodesulfurization of gas in the country or some incomprehensible thing like that, she went on live television to denounce the many, many lies of your favorite newspapers Clarin and La Nación regarding YPF and said she wanted Congress to come up with a public ethics law, that forces journalists to say which companies are backing them financially so at least you know whose interests they are representing when they criticize her untarnished administration.

• This, of course, means I’m fucked. Because according to some of you, my loyal – yet dissident – readers, these are some of the people/organizations that include me on their payroll in order to “talk shit about this country in a column that no one reads”: the UCR, Mauricio Macri, the CIA, ExxonMobil, Hugo Chávez, the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, the Victory Front, Julian Assange, David Cameron, the Malvinas/Falklands islanders and also my mother, because I remember one reader wrote to say he wondered “how much money my parents were paying The Argentina Independent to let me write so much crap.” So yeah, I guess that includes my mom too. As you can see, I consider all your letters to be special and I keep them close to my heart.

• Moving on to what is probably the story of the week: a surfing cat!

• No, I’m kidding. This week, the city of Buenos Aires has become the epicenter of panic and despair as subway workers continue with an eight-day strike that has forced millions of people to walk, take cabs, ride bikes or – God forbid – take buses. Have you even tried to ride a bus during rush hour? Try it! It’s fun. You get yelled at by the bus driver, you get yelled at by old ladies, you get yelled at by people who are outside the bus and hate you because you’re inside the bus and you get poked and prodded by a lot of male genitalia (FYI: it doesn’t matter if you’re a guy).

• Meanwhile, in the dark caverns of the underworld (meaning, below the city, in the subway stations): THIS.

• Yeah, that’s right. Those are the subway workers on strike, screening a movie inside one of the cars. I can imagine them all giggling in their pajamas, throwing popcorn at each other and stuff, God bless them.

• Also, there’s this little campaign making the rounds on the social networks, calling on all citizens to respond to this week’s strike by refusing to pay to ride the subway next Monday. First of all, you’re delusional for thinking by Monday the subway will be working again. What kind of utopia do you think we’re living in? Mexico City? And second, let me know how that stunt goes for you when the cops start beating your head with a baton. Good luck!

• Because the city wasn’t enough of a mess this week, as thousands were forced to take the Mitre train line to go to work, the train obviously derailed. 31 people were injured in the crash. You knew it was going to happen.

• The train station in Retiro, one of the busiest ones during rush hour, was forced to shut down the Mitre line due to the crash. By Tuesday night, Buenos Aires was about to collectively kill itself.

• Another derailment took place on that same line one day later.

• Twice.

• And a day after that: this. How’s that for a late reaction, huh?

• Fun fact: Stay away from the Santojanni Hospital, that place is cursed. Seriously, if you go there because you have a headache chances are you’ll end up in a body bag after receiving multiple stab wounds. In the last year a man was stabbed and killed in the emergency room, two gangs of hooligans clashed in the hallways and now an angry mob completely trashed the place in response to an alleged malpractice case. Doctors in the city’s public hospitals went on a 24-hour strike to protest the lack of security staff in the premises, which of course amounted to absolutely nothing.

After another failed attempt at reaching an agreement, the city of Buenos Aires’ subsecretary of labour, Ezequiel Sabor, called for a compulsory conciliation on the ongoing subte dispute last night.

One of the unions involved, UTA, accepted to comply with the measure. However, the more combative AGTSyP announced today that there are “no conditions to lift the strike”, which entered its seventh day today, as Metrovías has not offered to re-start the wage bargaining process. The unions and Metrovías are currently holding a meeting, whose results remain uncertain.

On Thursday morning, judge Patricia López Vergara had ordered the city government to arrange a meeting between Metrovías and the subte workers’ representatives. That meeting took place yesterday, but no solution was found. This prompted the city government to call for the compulsory conciliation, despite their claims that the matter is not within theirs, but the national government’s jurisdiction.

Compulsory conciliation is a measure intended to force a meeting between the unions and the company, Metrovías, to find a solution to the current wage disputes. For 15 working days (21 calendar days), whilst the negotiation takes place, the parts in dispute must abstain from carrying out industrial action.

Buenos Aires city governor Mauricio Macri, today admitted in a radio interview to Radio Mitre that “the situation is complicated”, and that he cannot see a solution in the short term “because the metro-delegates [AGTSyP’s members] are not cooperating.” He also blamed the conflict on the national government, and said he did not want to take over the operation of the subte because he “does not want to be responsible for deaths like those in Once [train crash]“.

In a press release, subte operator Metrovías criticised Macri’s words, saying that they “only bring confusion.” They blamed the city government for the dire financial situation the company is in, which they see as a consequence of “the decision by the city government to suspend the transfer [of the subte from the national to the city government], generating a debt which is now over $200m, and which is the cause of the problems we are facing today.” They also reassured their passengers that the subte is a “completely safe method of transportation.”

An indefinite federal police strike in Brazil today enters its third day. As of yesterday, the strike is affecting the entire nation.

The strike began in 25 Brazilian states and the Federal District of Brasília on Tuesday, and federal police in the 26th and final Brazilian state of Río de Janeiro adhered to the demonstration yesterday.

President of the Union of the Federal Police of Río de Janeiro, Telmo Correa, specified that 70% of the city’s agents would be participating in the strike. By law, 30% of the force must remain working.

President of the National Federation of the Federal Police (FENAPEF) Marcos Wink has estimated that this 70% participation extends nationwide. The federal police force, which is dependent on the central government, numbers approximately 15,000 in Brazil.

Central among the protestors’ demands are a raise in salaries and the removal of the director general of the federal police, Leandro Daiello. According to Agencia Brasil, the federal police are also calling for better working conditions, the hiring of more officials, and a restructuring of the course required for police officers, court clerks, and fingerprinting specialists.

Protestors hold that Daiello favours higher-ranking officers within the federal police force to the detriment of lower-ranking officials. They point to the different in salary between superintendents and experts – who make between US$6,700 and US$9,800 and lower-ranking officials, who make between US$3,500 and US$5,500.

They also hold that the course required for police officers, court clerks, and fingerprinting specialists assumes that participants have only completed secondary school, even though, according to Wink, the acceptance process “demands a university education”.

Wink detailed that in the eyes of protestors, this assumption, “affects the negotiation for better working conditions and is the principal motivation for which we are striking.”

The on-going strike will be accompanied by street demonstrations by the police.

Alexandre Santana Sally, president of the federal police union in São Paulo, emphasised “the first act of the strike was the symbolic turning in of guns and emblems, to indicate that our movement is pacific and to show the lack of motivation with the government that they are not treating us in a friendly manner.

The federal police force is responsible for combatting drug trafficking and corruption, as well as overseeing immigration at points of access to the country and processing passports. In contrast, everyday security is the responsible of military police that are controlled on the state level.

Officials from the police unions say that the strike will mainly affect bureaucratic processes; for example, passports will be issued only in cases of emergency. Wink detailed that such situations as might merit a passport to be processed would include, “if someone must travel due to a family problem or if they already bought the ticket”.

Also affected is the process of evidence collection in cases that are related to trafficking in arms, drugs, and other contraband materials and corruption. Although many of the 30% of services that will remain in operation are related to immigration, controls at international airports near Brasilia, Porto Alegre, and Sao Paulo are expected to be affected, as well as those at the border crossing with Argentina and Paraguay in the area of Foz do Iguazú.

For now, however, important services such as witness protection, prisoner custody, and important criminal investigations should not be affected.

Wink stated, “if there were to be some gesture from the government, we will suspend the strike and re-enter negotiations.”

The last time the federal police held a strike was in 2004, a mobilisation that lasted 45 days.

Municipal doctors have announced a 24-hour strike in the city starting tomorrow that will affect service to 33 hospitals and 44 primary attention centres.

The strike comes in response to security issues after a group of protesters held a rally inside Hospital Santojanni on Monday. The violent protests occurred for alleged accounts of malpractice.

Representative of the Association of Municipal Doctors (AMM) of Santojanni, Marcelo Struminger, told Clarín that they “[called] the strike because it is a possibility that the workers are not safe”.

Currently, the Hospital Santojanni remains with minimal services for patients.

The decision for the doctors to strike was finalised when Monday, at 10:30am, approximately 60 people went around the facility demanding justice for Jennifer Farías, a 19 year-old mother who died in Santojanni three days after giving birth in the facility.

The group hit employees and nurses, inflicted damages and painted the hospital walls. “I was on the first floor, the same one as the maternity wing, and I heard loud yelling of ‘murderers’… [this] group committed acts of vandalism in the same area where pregnant women and new mothers are,” said cardiologist, Struminger.

Farías’s death happened on the 18^th July. Her baby was born on the 15^th in good health, but the new mother did not feel well. “My sister complained that she couldn’t walk nor breathe and they said that that was normal for her first birth,” said Jennifer’s sister, Fernanda Farías.

The family of the young mother sued the hospital for malpractice and a judicial investigation into her death is being conducted.

As the subte strike continues, passengers continue to experience long waits for buses that hardly seem to come, while commuters sit in traffic jams that extend for kilometres.

The strike has been on-going since 9 pm Friday, when subte workers stopped offering service on all six subte lines and the Premetro. An estimated 1 million people are said to have been affected.

Subte workers are demanding salary increases and better working conditions and since the conflict has still not been resolved, workers have threatened to continue the strike for another 24 hours.

Meanwhile, federal government officials have continued to criticise the city for the disruption and for its failure to come to an agreement with the Association of Subte Workers and Premetro (AGTSyP).

Starting at 2 pm today, there will be a meeting between representatives from the city, the national government, the subte union and Metrovías in the administrative court of Laura Barreiro.

Speaking to Radio Continental, one delegate from AGTSyP said, “Someone has to raise their hand and say ‘we take responsibility to solve the problem.’ If no one calls us, we continue with the strike tomorrow.”