Full article down below:
spoiler
The reform introduces a profound change in the labor regime and would be a political victory for Milei, while Argentina's largest labor union, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), and other unions prepare to mobilize in front of Congress amid a partial transportation strike.
Among the central points of the project, presented by the Executive in mid-December, is the creation of a Labor Assistance Fund to finance severance payments, which can be funded with employer contributions equivalent to 3% of the payroll in place of contributions to Social Security.
The project also allows for the payment of salaries in foreign currency or in kind. The workday can be extended to 12 hours. While the maximum 48-hour workweek remains unchanged, the possibility of extending the daily workday from the current eight hours to a maximum of twelve hours is being considered, through the implementation of a "bank of hours" system.
This scheme would allow for compensating for excess work on some days with a lower workload on others, seeking greater adaptability to the production needs of companies.
The head of the Union for the Fatherland bloc in the Senate, José Mayans, said that he was going to stage the rejection of the main opposition force to the labor reform project promoted by the Government of Javier Milei in today's debate, and that is what he is doing.
The bill reduces the power of unions by weakening sectoral collective agreements and individual negotiations between workers and employers.
It restricts the right to strike by requiring minimum services of between 50% and 75% in sectors considered essential. Severance pay is reduced from one month's salary per year of service to one month's salary, and unions will only be allowed to hold meetings with the employer's authorization.
The stated objective of the initiative is to modernize legislation considered outdated and rigid, to stimulate the creation of registered employment and offer a more flexible framework to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Furthermore, the bill reinstates the concept of in-kind compensation or "food vouchers." This would allow companies to pay a portion of wages through non-monetary benefits, such as vouchers or food baskets.
This mechanism, which was already used in Argentina in the 1990s, generates debate about whether it could mean a loss of purchasing power or a precarization of wages by being exempt from social charges, or whether it constitutes a valid negotiation tool to improve the worker's income, as expressed by the Center for Studies of the New Economy, in its Wage Impact Analysis in October 2025.
