Today was day 3 of being in Buenos Aires! We started with two lectures, one from Dr. Daniel Ferrante about the public sector of Buenos Aires and another from Dr. Gabriel Leverstein about the unions in Argentina. Afterwards, we had a break for lunch and to exchange cash if we needed. To end the day, we had a bus tour that took us to three beautiful neighborhoods; Plaza de Mayo, San Telmo, and La Boca.
Dr. Leverstein really dove in on some of the important unions in Argentina, their challenges, and why they are necessary. In Argentina, any one who has a job is in a union, whether you pick it or it is provided to you. Unions provide social benefits and structure to their employees. Unions provide a safety net to Argentines in this sense by offering a form of protection. This may be simply advocating for workers rights, changing policies between employee and employer, and deciding a proper salary for employees. The main problems within the unions are cost, transfer, and budget. To go further, the lack of incentive and extreme hypocrisy is the major concern to the Argentines because there is no productive change to help the workers. Purchasing power is about one third of what it used to be and there has been a noticeable decrease of about 68%. This infers low productivity, which may hurt the businesses and employees.
Although, unions do their best to protect their people by providing different insurance plans to ensure proper coverage. One type of plan may be where the company takes 6% of your salary from your employer and 3% from your salary. On the other hand, there may be different ones if you are self-employed. Being self-employed in Argentina is a huge benefit in comparison to the United States because of how much cheaper your union plan per month is. Going back to the social safety net, unions also provide something called ART, which is similar to you and your family receiving benefits if you are hurt at work. This provides protection to not only you but the people you provide for. Without unions, employers would be much more on their own and dispersed throughout, not having a collective group.
After having that great discussion about unions, touring the neighborhoods was super interesting and exciting! We learned a lot about Argentine history and Peronism at the Plaza de Mayo as well as entering the church. Later, we toured the giant San Telmo Market and then went to La Boca, where we walked around their various street markets. The architecture, streets, and markets were super unique and definitely different from the United States as they were rooted in Argentine culture and style. I can’t wait to go back to these neighborhoods later in the trip and learn more about the Argentine healthcare system!