Jimmy Hoffa of Argentina Sidelined as Fernandez Courts Middle-Class Voters
General Workers Confederation Head Hugo Moyano
Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images
General Workers Confederation Head Hugo Moyano.
General Workers Confederation Head Hugo Moyano. Photographer: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images
Teamsters’ leader Hugo Moyano helped President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband dominate Argentine politics for eight years. Now she’s making moves that amount to a snub of her old partner, one labor leader says -- and Moyano and his allies are voicing their unhappiness.
Fernandez is pushing back against Moyano, head of the 5.5 million-strong General Workers Confederation, by limiting union delegates on her Peronist party’s list of congressional candidates and accusing them of “extortion,” said analysts including pollster Jorge Giacobbe. By distancing herself from Moyano as she seeks re-election, Fernandez hopes to woo middle- class voters turned off by union-led road blockades, he said.
Since 2003, when Fernandez’s late husband Nestor Kirchner became president, Moyano has rubbed shoulders with cabinet ministers and orchestrated pro-government rallies. He also brokered wage increases of as high as 30 percent, helping fuel what economists estimate may be the world’s fastest inflation. Moyano’s “forceful” tactics and ability to deliver working- class votes are comparable with the power exercised by late U.S. labor leader Jimmy Hoffa, said Claudio Loser, a former International Monetary Fund official.
“He and his people are the armed forces of the Peronist party,” said Loser, an Argentine who headed the Western Hemisphere department at the IMF from 1994 to 2002. “Moyano has the ability to mobilize a lot of people and create disturbances for companies that oppose the government.”
Worsening Inflation
Argentine inflation could accelerate if ties between the government and Moyano’s organization, known as the CGT, deteriorate, said Boris Segura, a Latin America strategist at Nomura Securities International in New York. The government says consumer prices rose 9.7 percent in May from a year ago, while analysts including former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna estimate inflation is running as high as 25 percent.
“The only way inflation won’t get totally out of control is through wage negotiations, which are going to get much more complicated now that the CGT is being ignored in the voting lists,” said Segura. “Moyano is going to get out his cudgel.”
Argentina’s inflation-linked bonds have tumbled 11.7 percent this year as investors lost confidence in the government’s efforts to improve the credibility of the monthly price reports. Similar Brazilian notes have gained 3.5 percent.
The inclusion of just two union representatives, including one of Moyano’s seven children, in the list of congressional candidates for Fernandez’s ticket was a snub to organized labor, said Omar Viviani, leader of the taxi drivers union and an ally of Moyano.
“Everyone is angry,” Viviani said in a June 27 interview on Radio La Red.
‘Take to the Streets’
Moyano, 67, also expressed his frustration.
“Are we only here to vote?” he said in a July 5 speech to union leaders in Buenos Aires. “Are we only here to take to the streets when they call us?”
Moyano didn’t return repeated phone calls and e-mails to the CGT by Bloomberg.
For most of Fernandez’s presidency, Moyano was a stalwart ally. When Kirchner died of a heart attack last October, Moyano held a news conference hours later to reaffirm his support for her administration. On Nov. 2, Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez called Moyano’s labor movement the “backbone” of the government.
Money Laundering
Fernandez began expressing her displeasure about union disturbances in May, when a strike by truck drivers slowed operations by oil producer YPF SA (YPFD) and threatened to create fuel shortages in South America’s second-biggest economy. That followed a threat from the CGT to call for a national strike in March after Swiss authorities requested information about Moyano's finances as part of a money laundering investigation.
“We can’t be held hostage by those who, in pursuing their own interests, hurt all of society,” Fernandez, 58, said in a May 12 speech in Buenos Aires. “I’m tired of hypocrisy, of those who chant ‘Go Cristina’ and then the following day do whatever they can to knock everything down.”
The rebuke, while not singling out Moyano, was a signal she wants to bring workers’ groups to heel to broaden her base of support ahead of the Oct. 23 election she is favored to win in a landslide, said Giacobbe, head of Buenos Aires-based pollster Jorge Giacobbe & Asociados SA.
Building Power
“Moyano was useful for Kirchner when he needed to build power, when he needed to connect with people,” said Giacobbe. “Now Cristina is targeting public opinion, and there’s nobody who defends Moyano. He has about an 85 percent negative image.”
Polls show Fernandez’s strategy may be working, aided in part by economic growth that averaged 5.6 percent per year from 2008-2010. She had 50 percent support among eligible voters compared with 10 percent for opposition candidate Ricardo Alfonsin, according to a June 22-24 poll by Buenos Aires-based CEOP Opinion Publica. Under Argentine law a candidate must win 45 percent of votes or 40 percent and have a 10 percentage point lead over the second-place finisher to avoid a runoff.
Moyano’s introduction to activism began at an early age. As a child, he watched his mother Celina fight to win warm clothes for workers forced to labor in refrigerated chambers at a fish plant where she was employed, according to “The Trucker,” a 2008 biography by Emilia Delfino and Mariano Martin.
When Argentina returned to democracy after a seven-year military dictatorship in 1983, Moyano was named secretary of the Peronist party in his hometown Mar del Plata. He then became leader of the Buenos Aires teamsters union, and in 2004 was named head of the CGT after leading strikes against IMF-backed budget cuts during the country’s 2001 financial crisis. He now leads the Peronist party in Buenos Aires province, the nation’s biggest electoral district.
Bribery Scandal
Opposition congresswoman Patricia Bullrich, who as labor minister in 2001 clashed regularly with Moyano, said she was present at a meeting that year when the labor leader threatened then-President Fernando de la Rua to his face to oust him. De la Rua, who resigned later that year amid protests, was under pressure by unions for allegedly paying bribes to congressmen to pass legislation making it easier to fire workers.
“If his goals or interests are questioned, or you try to modify his power structure, then things are going to end badly,” said Bullrich, whom Moyano used to call “the kid” in public. “It was his way of saying I should stay busy with politics and let him manage the ministry.”
De la Rua declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg.
“The Trucker” includes a photo of Moyano locking arms with James P. Hoffa, the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and son of Jimmy, who was convicted of fraud and jury tampering in 1964.
Peronist Party
Fernandez’s move to distance herself from Moyano carries risks, as governing without union support in Argentina has proven impossible in the past. Her ruling Peronist party was founded by former President Juan Domingo Peron, who rallied working-class support to rule the country from 1946 to 1955 and again from 1973 to 1974.
Former President Raul Alfonsin, who in 1983 became the first democratically elected leader after the military dictatorship, was forced to transfer power five months before his term ended in 1989 after 13 national strikes paralyzed the economy and annual inflation was 5,000 percent.
Moyano denies that his organization is generating conflict.
“I don’t get confrontational with anybody,” Moyano told journalists in Buenos Aires May 27. “I’m even sweeter than Lassie the dog with a muzzle.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Eliana Raszewski in Buenos Aires at eraszewski@bloomberg.net; Helen Murphy in Bogota at hmurphy1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at jgoodman19@bloomberg.net
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