In response to high unemployment and intolerable social conditions, thousands of workers and farmers blocked the national highway, cutting off traffic between Córdoba and La Rioja provinces. Shoving aside local authorities and traditional leaders, they organized daily mass meetings to press their demands for jobs and social rights. The provincial government was forced to meet with them, negotiate, and promise to fulfill their main demands.

Similar conditions have sparked rebellions since April in cities across Argentina - from Cutral-Có in the southern province of Neuquén to Salta in the north. In these and other cities, unemployed workers and youth - known as the piqueteros (pickets) - have blocked highways to demand jobs from the government. Fearlessly fighting back police assaults, they have won broad support in the working class.

Revolt of the farm workers
On a June 6 visit, Militant reporters interviewed a group of five workers who told the story of the uprising here.

"Cotton, olives, tomatoes, and garlic are the main crops grown in this area," explained Claudio Mauricio Ortega, a 21- year-old piquetero and farm worker, now jobless. "I've been working in the fields since I was 11. I've worked alongside my father, mother, brothers, and sisters." The cotton farms pay 10 cents a kilo, and the owners of the olive groves pay $1.50 per box.

"You have to work 10 - 12 hours a day to make 10 pesos [1 peso equals 1 dollar] and after the harvest is over, there's usually 2 - 4 months of dead time," he said. The majority of the population of Cruz del Eje are farm workers.

Over the years local factories have shut down, and official promises of new industrial sites never materialized. Meanwhile, social conditions have deteriorated.

"The other day Menem claimed no one is starving in Argentina," said Carolina Tello, 28, who works in a local hospital, referring to President Carlos Menem. "But as a nurse, I see malnutrition and disease every day. There is a growing number of cases of tuberculosis in this area."

"In 1996, when the new provincial government of Ramón Mestre took over they decided to cut back more sharply on education," said María Alejandra Tello, 25, a teacher. "They got rid of the seventh grade and laid off many of the teachers, so my job was eliminated."

Sick of `welfarism'
Sergio Avila, 34, a public employee and member of the Sanitation Workers Union, explained that "the government has always followed a policy of asistencialismo [welfarism], which is degrading and doesn't provide lasting solutions."

Tello pointed out that "they used to try to keep us quiet by giving families a bag of groceries every 45 days, although it would barely last a week. The food bags would show up especially around election time. We were sick of all that. People want jobs."

"Both parties have become discredited," said Germán Baigorrí, a teacher and accountant, referring to Menem's Justicialist (Peronist) Party and the Radical Party, which rules Córdoba province. Baigorrí, like Avila, is one of the elected leaders of the protesters.

The Peronist movement, which has held sway in the working class and the labor movement for five decades, was founded by Juan Perón, a bourgeois nationalist figure who was president in 1946 - 55, and then in 1973 - 74. In the postwar labor upsurge that occurred during his rule, the working class organized powerful industrial unions and won substantial social concessions.

In early May, working people in Cruz del Eje, encouraged by the popular revolts elsewhere, began to raise their voices demanding jobs and threatening to block the highway. A Multisectoral Committee was formed by union officials, local capitalist politicians, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and other businessmen to negotiate with the provincial authorities.

A local congressman showed up with the government's offer. "It was based on more of the same - welfarism," said Avila, who is also the secretary of the local Coordinating Committee of the Unemployed. "They offered more subsidies and easier credit -if we did not block the highway."

On the morning of May 27, the Multisectoral Committee held a public meeting to propose accepting the government's offer. About 1,000 people participated and many workplaces closed down. "In my hospital almost nobody went to work," said Carolina Tello.

"The people saw this committee had struck a deal behind our backs. They rejected the offer and voted to block the highway," said Avila. "Everyone marched down to Highway 38, at the entrance to the city, and set up the barricades. There we organized ourselves: we decided which highways to block, the picket schedules, and how to organize food provisions."

"By 1:00 p.m., there were 3,000 of us," said Ortega. "I joined the revolt because we want jobs and because I can't stand to see the malnourishment. There are dozens of kids in my neighborhood who go hungry."

Highway shut down for three days
The piqueteros blocked a total of eight highways and roads. "By 5:00 p.m. that day, not even a dog could get past our roadblock without our approval," said Carolina Tello with a grin.

In addition to voting to block the roads, those at the public meeting decided to replace the discredited leadership body and elected a new one, known as the Group of 15. "The one thing we decided was there would be no politicians and no union officials on it," said Ortega. He went down the list of the new members: a farm worker, a small farmer, a baker, an accountant, a housewife, a teacher, a bank employee, a hotel owner, and a nurse, among others. Avila, as leader of the unemployed workers organization, was also elected.

Ortega continued, "When we elected a new committee, we drew up a list of demands. Then we organized commissions to come up with concrete proposals on how to create jobs, such as building a pipeline to bring in natural gas from the town of Deán Funes. About 50 farm workers took part in these commissions."

The government claims there is no money to pay for such job-creating projects. "But they keep making payments on Argentina's foreign debt, which is now $100 billion. That debt is not only immoral, it's unpayble," Avila remarked.

Over the course of three days, there were meetings of up to 10,000 people to discuss how to proceed. The population of Cruz del Eje is 27,000. "These meetings were something totally new. Everyone raised their opinions, then we voted," Avila noted.

In Cruz del Eje the authorities decided not to assault the piqueteros, in light of the fierce resistance and public outrage sparked by such attacks in other cities. Avila said, "The government didn't unleash the police as in Cutral-Có or Jujuy because they could not agree among themselves on what to do. It's hard to repress a whole town!"

Representatives of the provincial government finally met with the protesters on May 30 and promised to come up with a plan to create jobs. At a large meeting the piqueteros decided to take down the roadblocks and give the government a deadline of June 17. The people of Cruz del Eje will hold a meeting that day to decide what to do next.

In a June 23 phone interview, Baigorrí reported that on June 17, a mass meeting in Cruz del Eje voted to protest the government's inaction and block Highway 38. A caravan of 300 traveled to Córdoba, where they were met by cheering crowds of unionists and other working people. There, members of the Group of 15 met with the provincial and national cabinets, and signed an accord that was approved at a June 21 meeting of 1,500 Cruz del Eje residents.

The government committed itself to facilitate the construction of a gas pipeline, irrigation canals, and public works; increase funding for the hospital; and provide 400 temporary jobs to be distributed by the Group of 15. The accord recognizes the authority of the Group of 15, bypassing the municipal government. Implementation will be supervised by a joint commission including members of the elected Cruz del Eje representatives. "Now the struggle continues to make the government implement the agreement," Baigorrí emphasized.  
 
 
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