Mark Goes on Strike

The demonstration got going under the watch of Eva Peron

Ok, so Mark didn't go "on strike." He actually went TO a strike.  In Argentina, strikes are not uncommon.  So far this year, we have already had a transit workers strike, a teacher's strike and a strike by topless women (seriously).  But this was a big one, even for Argentina.  The big unions in Argentina are upset about how contract negotiations were going, so they decided to have a big strike.  And it was big.  News accounts put the total number of demonstrators in the thousands.  That seemed about right:

Pretty good turn out for a Tuesday.

When Mark and Anne first arrived to Argentina, the protests were much easier to see.  This was because they were usually right in front of the U.S. Embassy.  Then, after President Macri was elected, the protests seem to be located elsewhere.  Which is nice, for the most part.  However, in this case, it meant Mark had to make the trek down to the downtown part of the city to see the protest, rather than watching it from the comfort (relatively speaking) of the embassy.

 This protest was big because many different union participated in it.  Each different color, flag, or banner represented a different union.  There are a couple different "umbrella" unions, which each have a group of individual workers' unions as their members.  The umbrella unions sometimes don't get along, but in this case, they were marching together to give a strong, united showing.

For the most part, the protest felt kind of like going to a tailgating event on a homecoming Saturday in a college football town.  There were marching bands (mostly just drummers, but still..),  basically a parade, tons of people grilling, tons of people drinking beer, and an overall festive atmosphere.  

You might think the crowd would try to break them up.  You would be wrong.  They were chanting "GOL-PE-AR, GOL-PE-AR" ~ "to hit".  

There was one brief bit of action.  The heads of the main umbrella unions spoke.  Some of the more militant workers were expecting that the heads would be stating the date of the next nationwide general strike.  However, when all was said and done, no date was set.  So this rather vocal minority got fired up and went after the union heads....Like I said earlier, the umbrella unions don't always get along.

This crowd is gathered around the backstage area.  The people standing on the yellow boxes (which are actually power generators!!!!) are trying to get a view of the pushing and shoving going on just below.  The whole thing lasted only a few seconds and no one was actually hurt, but this was the headline coming out of the event.  Go figure.

The most disappointing part of the whole thing might have been the artists and artisans union.  The red sign in the photo above is there.  Just black writing on a red background.  Kind of lame.  YOU'RE the ARTISANS UNION!!!  Show some pride.  You should have the best banner of everyone!  Just saying....I expected a little more from these guys.

Anyway, Mark's impression was the whole thing was very organized, much less dangerous then he had anticipated, and very well attended.

Photo from when Mark snuck onto the press platform.