On any given day in Argentina lately, some group somewhere seems to be striking for higher pay, more jobs or better working conditions. And it's exasperating even those Argentines sympathetic to the legions of workers who have seen their purchasing power slashed by the nation's economic collapse.

"These strikes have always gone on, but there are more now," said Maria Paredes, a 36-year-old nanny. "For working people like us this is a total mess, especially for those of us who have to make it on time."

Paredes was killing time Thursday evening waiting for service to resume on the Mitre train line, which takes her from her home in Bernal to her job in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Belgrano. Her normal commute is bad enough, but Thursday's nationwide rail strike stretched it to two and a half hours.

The strike derailed the estimated 1.8 million people who ride the nation's train lines daily, and it made a muddle of traffic in Buenos Aires. People seeking alternative transportation endured long lines for buses and taxis. And highways snarled with 250,000 extra cars on the road, about a quarter more than usual, according to government estimates.

"The train strike means a lot more traffic, a lot more people in the streets, and so many delays for everyone," said Valeria Pisani, 27, an official translator of English who, unlike many of her fellow would-be train passengers, learned of the strike Wednesday night and not upon arrival at the station Thursday morning.

Striking airline pilots and airport workers have grounded thousands of domestic and international flights in recent weeks. Teachers have canceled university classes. Hospital workers have delayed surgeries and redirected patients. Court workers have disrupted trials and other judicial business. And that's not to mention the roving bands of pickets who regularly block streets, businesses and public buildings to air a litany of political and economic grievances.

Like all those groups, the train conductors and machinists who struck Thursday can make a sympathetic case for their demands. Union leaders say members have been losing ground against inflation since 1991, with the hardest times coming after Argentina's economy collapsed in 2001-2002.

La Fraternidad, which called Thursday's strike and was later joined by other rail unions, is Latin America's oldest labor group, having been founded in 1887 in Buenos Aires. Its leaders are demanding a monthly base salary of 1,820 pesos, or a little more than $600. The rail companies are offering 1,500 pesos.

Union leaders say the company's offer, while a significant raise, falls short in a country where inflation has crept into the double digits and households still have not recovered from the drastic devaluation of the peso.

"They are right to protest, but their method hurts all the rest of the people who have to go to work and fulfill their obligations," said Pisani, who lost 45 minutes to the strike Thursday while commuting to her translating job. "This is too drastic."

At the same time, many Argentines see the strikes as an extension of the nation's complex political squabbling.

Some unions are seen as loyal to President Nestor Kirchner. Some are seen as tools of other parties or even of rivals within Kirchner's own Peronist movement. This tears at the sympathy the workers might otherwise hope to gain.

Thursday's rail strike, like most of the other work stoppages throughout the Argentine winter, cost time and money. But at Garrahan hospital, the main pediatric-care center in Argentina, families are worried that an intermittent strike by nurses and other medical professionals will cost someone's life.

Already doctors have been forced to suspend more than 160 surgeries this year, hospital officials said. On days when workers are striking, Garrahan sees a third of the usual 150 children it treats, the officials said.

"I put myself in the place of the doctors and the nurses who have to live as well, but there has to be some kind of solution," said Maria, who works at a small food and beverage shop in Buenos Aires. "What is happening is terrible. It is an embarrassment that there are no operations for these children with problems who have to be hospitalized and are not."

Maria, who gave only her first name, was waiting for the trains to start running again Thursday night. The strike was supposed to go on all night, but Kirchner himself appealed to the leaders of La Fraternidad, and the union went back to work almost in time for the evening rush.

Passengers were relieved, but wary. Even as they lifted Thursday's strike, union leaders threatened another one - this time for 36 hours - in the coming week.