Anti-govt protest in Argentina

The third of three days of demonstrations saw tens of thousands of people march through the capital Buenos Aires on Friday to protest the firing of thousands of state employees since Macri took office last December.

Amid a roughly 47 percent rise in consumer prices compared to last year, many Argentineans are also angry at the rolling back of subsidies on their utility bills, which they say will leave millions struggling.

Five columns of demonstrators - including union members, activists, leftist groups, students, doctors and teachers - waved blue and white Argentine flags in front of the presidential palace.

Union leaders gave speeches in front of around 200,000 people, organizers said.

'No more job cuts'

"Enough of the layoffs, enough inflation, enough with struggling to get our salaries," Adrian Rosso from the Central Provincial Executive Council of Argentine Workers (CTA) told the Spanish news agency EFE. Rosso said he hoped the first march in 22 years would spell the end for "neoliberalism" in Argentina.

Jorge Mendez from the Buenos Aires metro workers union complained to EFE that the "reforms" would bring about poverty, unemployment and inequality by a government that represents the "bourgeoisie and not the working class."

He said education had been "degraded" and that taxes had risen under Macri first few months in office.

"If they don't hear our clamor, if they don't give us answers, there will be a social conflict," said Pablo Micheli, secretary general of the Argentine Workers' Union. "If they don't listen to us, sooner or later, there will be a nationwide strike."

Years of weak growth

Macri, who was elected on a promise to cut bloated public spending, says the measures are needed to revive Argentina's frail economy and end economic distortions that have led to years of spiraling consumer prices.

But unions and human rights groups, which organized Friday's protest, say workers are being indiscriminately fired while Argentines continue to lose purchasing power.

In defense of the reforms, Labor Minister Jorge Triaca told reporters on Friday than inflation had fallen over the past four months and that a strong economy would have an impact on job creation.

Argentina's inflation numbers have been in doubt since 2007, when the late President Nestor Kirchner had political appointees change the agency's methodology. Macri revamped the national statistics agency earlier this year, in the hope of regaining trust in the economy, the government said.

mm/bw (AP, EFE)