Labor

A series of recent events has opened up a new phase in Venezuela's labor movement. One of the most significant was the government’s decision to re-nationalise the Sidor steel works, one of the most important in Latin America, after an 18-month struggle by its work force.

“Once they got their wages, [the workers] occupied the installations and demanded that the company go, then they occupied the offices and demanded that the administration of Sincreba [Merida Waste Incineration and Recycling System] retire”, Simon Rodriguez told Green Left Weekly.

As May Day approaches once again, Federico Fuentes from www.greenleft.org.au interviews Stalin Pérez Borges (SPB), national coordinator of the National Union of Workers (UNT) and member of the editorial board of the newspaper Marea Socialista and Marcos Garcia (MG), national coordinator of the public sector federation, FENTRASEP and member also of Marea Socialista.

The recent replacement of the labor minister and the nationalization of Sidor have once again brought to the fore the question of the role of workers in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, whose participation as an organized class has been sporadic at best, in this process aimed at constructing ‘Socialism of the 21st Century.’

Denouncing the “coloniser attitude” and “barbarous exploitation” of workers by the management of the Sidor steel company, Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez announced at 1.30am on April 9 that President Hugo Chavez had decided to nationalise the company.

President Hugo Chavez has set a precedent that emboldens workers and worries businesses by nationalizing Venezuela's largest steel maker in the middle of a sometimes violent labor dispute.

Over the weekend of October 26 to 27, several hundred people attended a two day conference on Worker's Management: Theory and Practice, as part of a program, "Human Development and Transformative Praxis," run by Canadian Marxist academic Michael Lebowitz at the International Miranda Center in Caracas.

Venezuela’s Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT or National Workers’ Union) has called on its 2 million workers to unite in the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV or United Socialist Party of Venezuela), despite the bitter infighting and conflicts over tactics, strategy and politics that had threatened the union confederation’s participation in the Bolivarian revolution.

Workers at the bathroom ceramics factory Sanitarios Maracay took over their factory last November and have recently been strugging not only against the former owner but also again the state government authority to maintain control over their workplace.

A movement for workers’ co-management in industry gathered strength in 2005, with a number of experiments in workers’ direct management over production. However the pro-government union movement has since been weakened by internal fighting, and the movement for co-management has largely stalled.