Workers are taking control in Venezuela
By
Betsey Piette
Caracas, Venezuela
Published Apr 27, 2005 11:30 PM
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.
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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.
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