Workers are taking control in Venezuela

Everywhere in Venezuela today workers are forging ahead with new formations of workers’ organization. They are taking over factories here, experimenting with co-management there. Workers are challenging the old class relationships and coming to a collective realization of their historic role in the struggle for socialism.

Venezuelan Labor Minister Maria Crisina Iglesius (wearing MWM shirt), with delegates from Boston School Bus Drivers Union and interpreter.

There are no guarantees that they will succeed. The problems faced by the Venezuelan working class are massive: 80 percent live in poverty, millions are in need of better housing, education, higher wages and better benefits. But as the workers of Venezuela begin to flex their muscles and to exercise their rights under the Bolivarian Constitution, there appears to be a growing recognition that their collective power should stop at nothing short of state control. It is a struggle that holds out great hope for the world’s working class.

Throughout the process of the Bolivarian Revolution, the role of the workers has gone through a dramatic transformation. In April 2002, workers were participants in massive demonstrations that turned back an attempted coup d’etat against President Hugo Chávez. Progressives within organized labor played a key role in defeating employers’ lockouts during the pro-business “general strikes” of December 2002 and January 2003. But today the momentum of the class struggle is propelling workers into a leadership role.

To understand just how dramatic is the change taking place in Venezuela’s working class today, we need to take a brief look at the history of organized labor in this oil-rich Latin American country. For over 30 years prior to the U.S.-backed attempt to overthrow Chávez in April of 2002, the workers’ struggle against neoliberalism was held in check by the leadership of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), the country’s main labor council.

The CTV subordinated the interests of the workers to big business political parties that opposed Chávez. From 2001 to 2003 the CTV cooperated with Venezuela’s largest chamber of commerce federation, the Fedecamaras, in four job actions they called “general strikes,” which most observers admit were really employers’ lock-outs.

It also appears that the CTV received continuous financial assistance from a known conduit for the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, disbursed through the AFL-CIO. This is documented in an article on ZNet by Alberto Ruiz entitled “The Question Remains: What is the AFL-CIO doing in Venezuela?” (March 2, 2004)

Many former CTV members left it after becoming aware of this U.S. backing.

Workers form new labor council

In 2001, the CTV was forced to hold the first leadership election in its history. However, it was so corrupt that 50 to 70 percent of the workers refused to participate in this process, and Venezuela’s Supreme Court refused to recognize the results. In 2003, during the CTV-backed lockout by the business opposition, many workers responded by occupying factories to keep them open, running them as cooperatives. When owners threatened to shut down factories, workers took over plants, including a Pepsi-Cola bottling facility in Villa de Cura owned by an active supporter of the coup.

A large grouping of Venezuelan workers, fed up with the CTV’s corporate unionism, gave up attempts at reform. In May 2003, at a jubilant gathering in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, workers from nearly every sector of the country’s labor force joined together to form a new confederation, the National Union of Workers (UNT).

In less than two years the UNT has demonstrated astonishing growth. In 2003 and 2004, 76.5 percent of newly signed collective bargaining agreements were with UNT-affiliated unions, compared to 20.2 percent with the CTV. The UNT clearly dominates the public sector. However, even among workers covered by private sector collective agree ments, it represents 50.3 percent compared to 45.2 percent for the CTV. Overall, the UNT has 600,000 members to the CTV’s 300,000.

The UNT has been at the forefront as workers exercise their rights under Vene zue la’s new constitution to form parallel unions to replace the old corporate unionism. This constitution contains many provisions that guarantee workers’ rights. An English version is available at http://www.vheadline.com.

The UNT has pushed for regular, open elections and supports workers’ co-management or self-management in workplaces. With an increased say over what gets raised at the bargaining table, the new unions have excited workers about their prospects for improving working conditions, wages and benefits.

The UNT has adopted the slogans “No to globalization, yes to worker-management” and “Workers of the world, unite.” They are clearly taking the struggle beyond the economic confines of traditional trade unionism, from a fight merely to improve wages, benefits and working conditions to one prepared to challenge capitalist control over these conditions.

The massive popular demonstrations that turned back an attempted coup in 2002 opened the floodgates for revolutionary change and swept the working class of Venezuela onto center stage. They face many problems. The forces of counter revolution, while temporarily set back, nevertheless remain poised in the wings to re-emerge.

The workers, however, are making it clear that they will not be satisfied with a simple change in plant management here or workers’ control over a plant there. They want workers’ control over the state; they want socialism. They know that in the struggle ahead they have nothing to lose but their chains.

Piette participated in the Third
World Gathering in Solidarity with the Boli var ian Revolution April 13-17 in Caracas and attended a conference workshop in the state of Carabobo at which workers analyzed their co-management of several workplaces. Next: an account of that workshop.