Argentina

Illegal Street Vendors Cite Right to Work as Merchants Allege Unfair Competition in Argentina

Publication Date

Illegal Street Vendors Cite Right to Work as Merchants Allege Unfair Competition in Argentina

Publication Date

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – Nelson Aguilares, 19, moved to Buenos Aires from Peru one year ago. To make a living, he sells goods from a blanket on the streets of Argentina’s capital.

Aguilares is a “mantero,” derived from the Spanish word for blanket. From his blanket, he sells aluminum thermoses, scarves, gloves, electric plugs and electric water heaters.

Aguilares says that he and his siblings sell these items for other people who are also from Peru. But he declines to give more details about who these suppliers are, clamming up when asked anything unrelated to the goods he’s hawking.

He fixes his big, dark eyes on one spot, avoiding eye contact. But little by little, the medium-height teenager opens up about his job.

"They give me this merchandise, and I sell it day after day." he says. "And they also give me food."

He earns about $15 a day, working from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

“They pay me 70 pesos per day,” he says.

He admits it's not much, but it's something.

“It’s a wage,” he says. “And this way, I help my family." 

Every four minutes, flocks of people emerge from the subway and pass by Aguilares’ blanket. Tourists also walk by speaking different languages, with backpacks and cameras in hand. All are potential clients.

But the sales that Aguilares makes are not legal, according to the city government. For this reason, he says he has to constantly be attentive, always ready to quickly conceal his goods if police pass by.


“When the police come, I have learned to be quicker than them,” he says, rubbing his thin hands to stay warm as the winter months approach. “I pick everything up, and I go. And they don’t take anything from me.”

Aguilares says he has other plans for the future. He wants to obtain permanent resident papers in Argentina, look for a legal part-time job and study graphic design.

But then his cell phone rings, interrupting his aspirations to leave this business one day. His responses imply that he’s receiving advice from the caller to change locations and set his blanket down in a spot where the police have already passed.

Excusing himself for the interruption, he packs his goods into three large bags and drags them with two handcarts to his next post, where he'll set down his blanket once more.

Los manteros make a living hawking goods from blankets and cloths throughout the city. But local business owners say that they create unfair competition because they don’t have to pay taxes, rent or other costs and are part of an organized network of illegal trade, a claim that many manteros deny. The government has been unsuccessful in its attempts to evict them from the city’s streets and sidewalks and is now looking to relocate them to several weekend fairs. But los manteros complain that this doesn’t solve their need to work during the week in order to support themselves and their families.

There were more than 2,600 manteros in the city of Buenos Aires in February 2012, according to the Confederación Argentina de la Mediana Empresa, which represents more than 1,400 federations, unions and other bodies in the business and commerce sector. They sold goods totaling 52.4 million pesos ($11.7 million), which is not subject to tax. On Florida Street alone, the main pedestrian street in the city, the number of manteros increased from 211 in June 2011 to 677 in November 2011.

The phenomenon of los manteros emerged in Argentina during the 2001 economic crisis, when many Argentines took to the streets to sell their own belongings from blankets. Others became artisans in order to make a living, also selling their handicrafts from cloths on the ground. But now, los manteros are mostly from other Latin American countries and don’t have work permits to gain legal jobs in Argentina.

As such, local business owners see los manteros’ gains as their losses. 

Sergio, the manager of a business on Florida Street, says that los manteros can sell their goods below market prices because they don’t have to pay taxes, creating unfair competition for businesses that comply with the law. Their presence also impedes customers’ access to stores.

“There are people who don’t enter the business because they block the way with their blankets, bags or shopping carts full of merchandise,” Sergio says.

He says that they are not individuals fighting to survive but rather are pawns of larger organizations looking to profit from the sale of illegal goods.

“The fact that each time there are more is worrisome,” Sergio says, “not only for the sales that they lower in businesses, but also because los manteros are in reality employees of other organizations that hire them. Every day at a certain hour, they bring them food and pass by to check up on them and to bring them change.”


He says they are well-organized, so storeowners try to avoid confrontations with them.


“It is not advisable to treat them badly – although we’re not nice to them – because a violent situation can break out, and it’s not desirable for us or for our clients,” says Sergio, who declined to give his last name for fear of reprisal.


Sergio Barbui, the spokesman for the Ministerio de Ambiente y Espacio Público, agrees that los manteros represent unfair competition for the merchants and that their presence also makes it difficult for pedestrians to walk down Florida Street.

“What they do is unfair competition,” Barbui says. “Moreover, they make the passage of people difficult.”

He also says that los manteros are not individual sellers.

“Behind los manteros are organizations that commercialize products with the falsification of brands or from clandestine workshops,” he says.


But many manteros call this a lie.


Omar Guaraz, founder of the Vendedores Libres del Movimiento Social Francisco Jofre, an association that defends the right of los manteros to make a living in the city, says that they are not part of a grand illicit organization. He counters that it’s possible that some venders have different stalls manned by various family members, which would explain why they share food throughout the day.

“There are individuals who have various stalls that are attended by their relatives or who have people working for them,” he says. “This is an isolated phenomenon. Individuals exist who do their business in a public space, but the majority use the public space to work.”

Guaraz says that the media is responsible for disseminating the idea that illicit organizations are behind los manteros because of pressure from business owners to tarnish their image.

“They have to make them unpopular,” Guaraz says. “And how did they do it? Transforming them into delinquents. The organized media used to plant in the collective imagination the idea that los manteros on Florida Street were part of a large-scale criminal organization. They even called them ‘mafias.’”

He says that los manteros are individuals who turn to illegal trade because they are excluded from legal employment.

“Los manteros are excluded from the system,” he says. “They are of all the nationalities – Argentines, Peruvians, Bolivians, Dominicans, Africans. The majority are foreigners because they chose a country like Argentina in order to be able to work and have the opportunities that they didn’t have in their countries.”

He says many are waiting on documentation.

“Because of an administrative issue, they have their documentation being processed, which doesn’t permit them to have a formal employment,” he says.

He says hawking illegal goods is their only option to support themselves.

“They survive with the blankets,” he says.

In December 2011, the city legislature sanctioned a law in order to include los manteros in several of the open-air markets that take place on the weekends and holidays at designated spots in the city.

In those markets, artisans sell traditional handicrafts, but it is prohibited to sell industrialized merchandise. With this new law, los manteros can sell their commercial products in five of those markets and only if they can prove the origin of the goods and that they don’t violate trademark law.

Under the law, whoever wrongfully uses public space for unauthorized lucrative activities has to pay fines ranging from 500 pesos ($110) to 1,000 pesos ($225). Whoever organizes this type of activity is subject to fines of up to 60,000 pesos ($13,500).

Less than a month after the passing of the law in January 2012, there was a conflict between los manteros and authorities in the streets.

Guaraz says that the Ministerio de Ambiente y Espacio Público sent police in civilian clothes and ministry employees to the seven blocks of Florida Street to clear los manteros from the area.

“The operation consisted of expelling los manteros,” Guaraz says. “We made a concentric circle, and they couldn’t expel us.”

He says that he and the other manteros were hit and threatened, but the media highlighted los manteros as the aggressors.

“The operation was very violent,” he says.

Barbui says that negotiations have been in process with los manteros since January 2012. But los manteros have rejected the government proposal of relocating to several weekend fairs.

“They were offered places in different fairs in the city,” he says. “But they claim that they sell more on Florida Street.”

He says that they don’t have much of a case.

“Los manteros, in reality, don’t have much to demand because their activity is prohibited,” he says.

Guaraz stubs out his 11th cigarette in an hour as he takes shelter from the rain underneath the balcony of a building. He assures that he and his fellow manteros will continue fighting for their ability to continue their work.

“We are workers in a public space,” Guarez says. “There will be a solution for los manteros. They took from us the right to work. The fight continues.”