26/12/2025

Argentina’s Labor Reform: Deepening Inequality for Women

That the labor reform bill presented by the government of Javier Milei precarizes and flexibilizes labor relations to the detriment of the individual and collective rights of working people is a diagnosis that is difficult to dispute.

What is at stake in Argentina is not merely a package of technical modifications: it is a shift in paradigm. The bill proposes moving away from the humanistic approach that has historically permeated Argentine labor public order—where the working person is at the center—to replace it with a predominantly economicist perspective, which conceives the employment relationship as a variable of cost and adjustment.

We should not forget that labor law historically emerged as a great equalizer: an instrument designed to “rebalance the scales” in the face of the structural inequality between the parties to an employment relationship—that is, between worker and employer. For this reason, labor law places the working person at the center of the legal system, recognizing that work is not a mere commodity but an expression of human dignity. In this framework, the individual “realizes” themselves through their work.

The reform bill, by contrast, dresses itself in the language of “modernization” in order to strip away a system of rights protection that, despite its imperfections, sought to compensate for structural inequalities that particularly affect those who bear domestic and care responsibilities alongside paid work—overwhelmingly women.

For decades, Argentine trade unionism has maintained that labor law does not only regulate the exchange between capital and labor, but also structures everyday life, the use of time, and the real possibilities of reconciling employment, care responsibilities, and personal life.

These structural inequalities have been addressed by the organizations representing workers as a collective—trade unions—through a powerful instrument that regulates each activity within the labor market with precision: collective bargaining agreements.

The proposed amendments directly impact central dimensions of substantive equality.

The economicist approach of the bill will not only affect workers as a whole but—predictably—will do so in a differentiated manner, deepening inequalities between men and women in access to employment, job retention, and career development.

If we examine the reform more closely—like looking through a microscope—and observe its provisions and potential repercussions in greater detail, it becomes clear that its effects are not neutral: they impact women workers and people who assume care responsibilities in particularly negative ways.

One of the most concerning axes is the flexibilization of working time and the introduction of the so-called “hours bank,” which allows for extended and variable working days at the employer’s disposal, with minimal restrictions (a 12-hour rest period between shifts), to be compensated at another time determined by the employer.

This scheme transfers almost absolute control over workers’ time to the employer, eliminating schedule predictability.

For those who provide care—predominantly women—the inability to organize time in advance creates greater difficulties in sustaining employment, family life, and care responsibilities simultaneously.

The reform ignores the fact that time is not a resource equally available to all. While some individuals can adapt to changing schedules, others face concrete limits that the market does not acknowledge: care responsibilities.

Ultimately, this new regulatory design has a differentiated impact. In practice, it expels or penalizes those who provide care, those who cannot be “always available,” thereby consolidating indirect discrimination based on gender and family responsibilities:

– Women continue to disproportionately assume unpaid care work (children, older adults, persons with disabilities);
– Schedule unpredictability complicates the daily organization of care, medical appointments, schooling, and therapeutic support;
– Autonomy over one’s own time is restricted, deepening the double workday (paid employment plus unpaid care).

Added to this is the elimination of obligations to record and monitor working hours and overtime, which hinders union and state oversight and leaves workers with reduced evidentiary capacity in cases of abuse.

This is compounded by the weakening of collective bargaining, particularly through restrictions on the ultra-activity of collective agreements. The bill redefines the scope of ultra-activity, establishing that once agreements expire, only normative clauses remain in force, while obligational clauses automatically lapse unless expressly renewed.

The distinction between normative and obligational clauses places at risk collectively won benefits that are crucial for equal opportunities, such as childcare and daycare reimbursements and other care-related provisions. If these benefits are not guaranteed as permanent rights, they may disappear upon the expiration of agreements, directly affecting women workers and people with dependent children.

In particular, the following may be affected:

– Childcare and daycare reimbursements;
– Economic support systems for care;
– Collectively administered funds or benefits;
– Benefits requiring conventional contributions or funding.

If these benefits are reclassified as “obligational” due to their financing or administration mechanisms, they may lapse with the expiration of agreements, weakening policies of social co-responsibility for care historically promoted by the trade union movement.

Another critical aspect is the expansion of non-wage social benefits, which enables the substitution of salary with benefits excluded from contributions, social security, and severance compensation. This logic not only weakens social protection but consolidates lower and more precarious incomes in highly feminized sectors, deepening the gender gap in the labor market.

From a gender perspective, this trend entails clear risks:

– Care-related benefits may become discretionary;
– Reduced registered wages affect bonuses, paid leave, indemnities, and pensions;
– A logic of “assistance” replaces full labor rights.

Far from promoting equality, this framework deepens the feminization of low-income work and labor market segmentation.

The repeal of maternity protection regulations and of the legal framework for telework completes a scenario of regression. Instead of advancing toward social co-responsibility for care, the reform shifts the burden onto individuals, forcing workers—especially women—to resolve tensions that should be addressed collectively.

For women workers and caregivers, these regulations are not “privileges,” but minimum tools to reconcile employment and family responsibilities without being pushed out of the labor market or into greater precarity.

There may also be other relevant gender impacts:

– Part-time contracts: the flexibilization of limits affects a highly feminized form of employment, increasing schedule unpredictability;
– Domestic work: the extension of probationary periods deepens precariousness in one of the most feminized and historically under-protected sectors.

Ultimately, the reform consolidates a model that subordinates the organization of life-time to market needs, weakens collective bargaining, and erodes rights that are key to equal opportunity.

Its impact is not neutral: it falls more heavily on women workers and caregivers, deepening structural inequalities and shifting collective problems into the individual sphere.

From the trade union movement, we affirm that labor law cannot be detached from social reality.

A reform that precarizes the use of time, weakens collective agreements, and erodes care-related rights does not promote equality or development; it entrenches inequality and reinforces an exclusionary model.

In the face of this scenario, trade unionism must embody a comprehensive strategy: to defend and strengthen collective bargaining as a central tool against the individualization of labor relations; to mainstream gender and care perspectives across all collective agreements; and to ensure that no reform is built at the expense of the rights of those whose labor and care make social life possible.

Karina Navone is Secretary for Gender and Equal Opportunities at SGBATOS; Co-Secretary for Social Action at the General Confederation of Labour (CGT); and Alternate Representative for the Southern Cone to the World Women’s Committee of Public Services International.