Undoubtedly the emergence of organizations grouping unemployed people –‘picketers’- relates to the long-lasting structural unemployment prevailing in the Greater Buenos Aires and several towns of the interior of the country. The socio-economic conditions are the major cause of this phenomenon and the path to its solution: the fast reduction in the living standards of these sectors, that were once used to enhanced welfare, prompts strong frustration and protest.

Nonetheless, according to psychological theory, the cause is not the only element that makes the phenomenon. Why is it that in other South American countries, where poverty and the impact of unemployment are higher, there are no ‘picketers’? Or why is it that in Greater Rosario, which reports the country’s most severe social unrest, this phenomenon has a lesser impact than in the Greater Buenos Aires?
 

Indeed, the phenomenon of picketers derives not only from unemployment but also ’clientelism’, the errors of the social policy, and its political abuse. It may be said that picketers are to a certain extent a by-product of political mismanagement that got to overwhelm its creators.

Picketers’ access to the so-called Planes Trabajar (unemployment programs) and other benefits stems from the incidents of Cutral-Có (and later Tartagal) between May and June 1997: in the wake of the protest and roadblock that protracted for a month, the government offered them Planes Trabajar in an attempt to halt the demonstrations.

From that year on, several groups of picketers have emerged in the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires recurring in the same practice: roadblocks launched after bargaining talks over Planes Trabajar.

The great expansion of this phenomenon occurs under the De la Rúa Administration. With the double purpose of shaking the Peronist clientelistic apparatus in the Buenos Aires province and stopping the rise of small groups of picketers sprouting in the outskirts, the Ministry of Welfare headed by Graciela Fernandez Meijide introduced a modification in terms of programs distribution –generally controlled by city halls- proposing that programs be only entrusted upon NGOs that would deal with their implementation. However, instead of limiting picketers’ movements, this move institutionalized and encouraged them: organizations of unemployed people create their own NGOs, act as coordinators of small groups emerged in the poorest neighborhoods of GBA and become organized social movements with stronger pressure, their own economic administration and a systematic practice of ‘picket lines’ and roadblocks.

So far the picketers’ phenomenon is the tip of the iceberg of clientelism and the absurdities of the social policy in Argentina. Had a centralized social security plan been implemented, favoring bread-earners, the mere national budget funds would have benefitted almost all the families affected by unemployment. However, a decentralized and disorganized system, prone to this kind of abuse, was preferred.

But for the past years the picket phenomenon has increased at a pace of geometrical progression becoming an iceberg itself. The inorganical expression of a legitimate protest shifted to embody a semi-organized movement with power for political action.

At present, picketers –at first organized into small area groupings- have grown to conform coordinating organizations, which in turn converge into 3 blocs:

1. CTA Picketers (CTA: Argentine workers confederation): groups attached to the Federación por la Tierra y la Vivienda (FTV –federation for the land and housing) led by Luis D’ Elia. Also the Movimiento Barrios de Pie (standing neighborhoods movement) guided by Patria Libre (Free Nation) is part of the confederation. Frente para el Cambio provincial congressman and former council member for the Frepaso in La Matanza, D’Elia was one of the first dissidents during the Alliance’s administration.

2. The Classist and Combative Current (CCC): trade union and picket wing of the Communist Revolutionary Party. For almost a year, the CCC has been working along D’Elia’s FTV jointly bargaining for unemployment benefits.

3. Picketing Bloc: gathers fewer advocates but features a stronger ideology. Some of the groups conforming this Bloc stem from the first picketing practices while others more recently created are linked to left-leaning parties.

We may identify two political trends within picketers’ movements: one is closer to the National Front against Poverty (FreNaPo) that groups Elisa Carrió, some former Alliance members and several political figures, who support the FTV-CTA and the CCC to a lesser extent. The other, which is quite more challenging, includes the Picketing Bloc and similar movements.

The phenomenon of picketers is the expression of a profound social change in Argentina. The core of the protest has shifted from unionized workers to the unemployed, which will sooner or later transform the traditional trade union leadership already discredited before public opinion to take a less unionized and more social-oriented shape. It may also be possible that much of the current picket phenomenon –I guess the sector supporting the Frenapo- should end up as part of this transformation siding with a new center-left political force. The other, a more radical sector, converging in the Picketing Bloc is deciding on whether to mollify its speech and radical-leftist practices or losing the support of a public opinion that seeks social peace and stability for Argentina.