During the three-week strike, workers and activists picketed access points to the docks and oil plants, especially in the regions of Rosario and San Lorenzo and in the large port complex of Bahía Blanca. Photo: Press FTCIODyARA
Argentina’s vegetable oil workers ended 2020 on a high note, with a triumphant 21-day national strike for higher wages. They were pushing to make the minimum wage a living wage, as the constitution mandates.
It was the country’s longest national strike of the year, and it ended in total victory: the unions won a 35 percent increase in wages for all of the workers, not just those earning the minimum. More than 20,000 working-class families won a decent wage for 2021. (In Argentina wages are negotiated in annual rounds of collective bargaining.)