"Clashes broke out between police officers and protesters on Friday in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires, as the Senate debated the controversial labour reform promoted by the ruling party. Footage shows police dispersing demonstrators with water cannons and tear gas as protesters march with banners reading 'Salary increase now, no to the labour reform' and 'Anti-worker labour reform', shake fences, set fires near Congress barriers, and deploy smoke grenades. "The government started repressing very early. It is with repression, the only way for a labour reform that is destined to worsen the social drama that Argentines live today, to pass," said Rodolfo Aguilar, Secretary General of the Association of State Workers, adding, "We are facing the greatest setback in labour legislation." "This is a defeat for the working class. If it passes, they are leading us to precarise, to destroy the productive system, so that our country never has an alternative. And we must face this in unity. We must all fight together," remarked a protester. Some demonstrators began leaving the vicinity of Congress in the early afternoon, when the disturbances started, and individuals with covered faces and backpacks, which, according to local media, were filled with stones, were identified. The labour reform debated in the Senate proposes reducing severance pay for companies. It would also allow a maximum 12-hour workday through an overtime compensation system and restrict the right to protest in sectors considered essential. "