CGT

General Confederation of Labour
(Confederación General del Trabajo de la República Argentina)
Founded	September 27, 1930
Cur. affiliation date
Date dissolved
Members
Country	Argentina
Head union
Affiliation	ICFTU
Key people	Moyano Hugo, secretary general
Office location	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Website	www.cgtra.org.ar

The General Confederation of Labour (Confederación General del Trabajo de la República Argentina, CGT) is a national trade union center of Argentina founded on September 27, 1930 as the result of the merge of the USA (Unión Sindical Argentina) and the COA (Confederación Obrera Argentina) trade union centers. 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Claiming 157 million members in 225 affiliated organisations in 148 countries and territories, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) came into being on December 7, 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). ... Buenos Aires (English: Fair Winds; originally Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María de los Buenos Aires, City of the Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of the Fair Winds) is the capital of Argentina and its largest city and port, and one of... A national trade union center is a federation of trade unions in a single country. ... September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 95 days remaining. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

After the coup d'etat of 1943, its leaders embraced the pro-working class policies of the Labour Minister, Col. Juan Domingo Perón. When Perón was separated from the government and confined in the Martín García island, the CGT called for a major popular concentration in Plaza de Mayo, succeeding in releasing Perón from prison. Afterwards, the CGT became one of the strongest arms of the Peronist Movement, and the only trade union center recognised by Perón's government. A coup détat, or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... Juan Domingo Perón (October 8, 1895 – July 1, 1974) was an Argentine military officer and the President of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and from 1973 to 1974. ... Overview of Plaza de Mayo The Plaza de Mayo (Spanish: May Square) is the main square in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina; it is flanked by Hipólito Yrigoyen, Balcarce, Rivadavia and Bolívar streets. ...

After the Libertadora Revolution, the CGT was banned from politics. In response, the CGT began a destabilisation campaign to end Perón's proscription and get him back to the country. During the 1960s, the leaders of the CGT attempted to create a "Peronism without Perón", that is, a form of Peronism that retained the ideals set forth by Juan Perón but not founded on the personality cult that had existed around him in the 1940s and 1950s. They celebrated president Arturo Umberto Illia's overthrow in 1966, but failed to reach an agreement with dictator Juan Carlos Onganía. The next years were blemished by often bloody internal disputes and the fight against the leftist Montoneros. In 1973, a commando killed José Ignacio Rucci, Secretary-General of the CGT and Perón's friend. Montoneros, who neither claimed responsibility nor denied it, are accused of Rucci's death. The Revolución Libertadora (Spanish, Liberating Revolution) was a military uprising that ended the second presidential term of Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina, in 1955. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... Arturo Umberto Illia (Pergamino, Buenos Aires, August 4, 1900 - Córdoba, January 18, 1983) was President of Argentina from October 12, 1963, to June 28, 1966. ... Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo (1914-1995) was a military president of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. ... Official logo of Montoneros The Movimiento Peronista Montonero was an Argentinian radical leftist nationalist-catholic guerrilla group, active during the 1970s. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ...

During the Dirty War of the second half of the 1970s, many of the CGT's leaders and activists were disappeared, while others negotiated with the militar dictatorship the control of the medical-care health-insurance organisations (obras sociales). The CGT split into Dirty War (in Spanish: Guerra Sucia) refers to a program of a state-sponsored war on domestic citizens in response to strikes, social unrest, violence or subversion that is claimed to threaten a countrys stability. ... Desaparecidos means literally the disappeared in Spanish, and is a reference to people who were arrested, often illegally, by various South American military governments and then vanished. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Dirty War. ...

• CGT Azopardo (official, led by Jorge Triaca) and
• CGT Brasil (dissident, led by Saúl Ubaldini),

named after the streets on which the headquarters were located.

After Falkland/Malvinas War, Raúl Alfonsín denounces a "militar-labour pact". After he is elected president of Argentina, he fails on passing through the Senate a new law regulating trade unions and guaranteeing freedom of association. In his negotiations with the CGT, Alfonsín had cede the sit of the Minister of Labour to CGT man Hugo Barrionuevo. The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) was an effective state of war in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands (also known in Spanish as the Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. ... Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (born 13 March 1927) is an Argentine politician, who was the President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 9 July 1989. ...

Under Ubaldini's guidance, the CGT launched 13 general strikes during Alfonsín's government. In 1989, with an hyperinflation corroding the economy, the CGT launched a 26-point program to support Carlos Menem bid to the Presidency, including measures such as declaring an unilateral external debt default. After winning the elections, Menem didn't quite follow all the progressive points on the campaign platform, leaving the Ministry of Economy to the Bunge y Born company. In 1996, during Menem's second mandate, the CGT finally reacts with a general strike against the neoliberal policies of the government. A general strike is a strike action by an entire labour force in a city, region or country. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... In economics, hyperinflation is inflation which is out of control, a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value. ... Carlos Saúl Menem (born July 2, 1930) was President of Argentina from July 8, 1989 to December 10, 1999 for the Justicialist Party (Peronist). ... Default is the name of a number of quite different concepts. ... Bunge y Born was an Argentinian-based multinational corporation. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... For the school of international relations, see Neoliberalism (international relations). ...

In recent years, and in spite its strength as the only labour representative in many forums, the CGT is facing growing opposition from other trade union centers, such as the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos (CTA), or the left-leaning grassroots organisations of unemployed people known as Piqueteros (Picketing Men). A piquetero is a member of a social movement originally initiated by unemployed workers in Argentina in the mid-1990s, during Carlos Menems rule, a few years before the peak of the economic crisis that started in 1998 with a recession and erupted in 2001 causing the resignation of... Employees of the BBC form a picket line during a strike in May 2005. ...

References

• Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Espanol - CGT. Original version in Spanish, released under GNU FDL.
• CGT official site