ARGENTINA: Up Pay; Up Peron

Citizen Juan Domingo Perón had completed his plans for a campaign tour of Argentine provinces. He had every reason to expect a welcome as warm as Santa Claus’s, one translatable into votes on presidential election day, next Feb. 24. The reason: a governmental decree last week boosting pay an average 30% for some 3,000,000 workers (1,000,000 more than the normal total of Argentine voters). The boost had been Perón’s idea, left with the Government when he was ousted in October.

The decree, with all that it might mean for the poor and virtually unorganized workers of rich Argentina, ordered: 1) 10% to 25% pay increases, retroactive to Dec. 1; 2) an annual bonus equal to one month’s earnings for Argentines earning less than 1,000 pesos ($250) a month. Domestics, Government employes, utilities workers were excluded. To enforce the law a National Salaries Institute was created.

Pesos & Polls. Glee from working Argentina and the cry “We Won!” from parading young Peronistas overshadowed complaints from workers excluded from the benefits, disappointment that the package delivered was not the one Perón planned (the Cabinet refused to approve an outright 25% share in net profits, basis of Perón’s original draft), and the frank, understandable anger of management. Some employers would certainly refuse to pay, if only to test the constitutionality of the decree, but time had run out. A Supreme Court decision against the measure would merely tighten Perón’s claims that all but he were foes of labor.

Perón held strong cards. His enemies were playing their hands badly. The Conservatives shouted against Perón, helped him by announcing that they would run their own presidential candidate. Earlier they had been expected to support the candidate of the Democratic Union, an anti-Perón coalition of Radicals, Socialists, Communists and Progressive Democrats. Thus the anti-Perón vote was split, the ex-colonel’s cause advanced.

At week’s end Perón told university students, “I doubt whether the people of the United States really know what is happening here.” For those who could read, and remember Hitler, it was not hard to guess.