In Venezuela various levels of class contradictions are developing and sharpening that shape the current national reality. The strong struggle for power between the current pro-capitalist and extremely authoritarian government leadership and the ultra-reactionary opposition tendency is to a great extent a national expression of the inter-imperialist contradictions of a global scope. In short, it is a manifestation of the dispute between different power blocs for the hegemony of world capitalism in its imperialist phase, which are aiming to control oil and other strategic resources present on Venezuelan soil, for capitalist accumulation. Simultaneously, during the crisis of Venezuelan dependent and rentier capitalism, the fundamental contradiction of society -that develops between capital and labor- is sharpening, and that antagonistically contrasts the interests of the bourgeoisie and its different political expressions – both the opposition and the government- with the interests of the working class, which today extremely divided and weak.
Obviously, the Venezuelan class-conscious labor and trade union movement, expressed in the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV) and the Frente Nacional de Lucha de la Clase Trabajadora (FNLCT), does not identify with either of the two polarizing bourgeois sides in the confrontation for power in the political-electoral arena.
We have always rejected and confronted the plans of the United States and its allies against our right to self-determinationi We are also aware of the fact that the U.S. and its allies, even using national political agents, have perpetrated crimes against the Venezuelan nation and people. But also, our class-conscious orientation has led us to separate and confront a government that applies policies contrary to the interests of our working class and whose “leftist” and allegedly socialist rhetoric does not correspond to its concrete political practice; precisely, here we proceed to explain extensively why the class-conscious trade unionism of Venezuela does not support the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro’s administration, at the head of the Presidency of the Republic, has been characterized by administering the crisis of dependent capitalism and the collapse of the oil rentier system -aggravated by the criminal imperialist sanctions- in favor of foreign and national capitalists, through the destruction of wages and the dismantling of rights and historical conquests of the working class. From the moment Nicolás Maduro took the reins of the National Executive, a process of reversal of the progressive and popular aspects of the administration of Hugo Chávez began. We went from the process of progressive reforms -initiated in 1999- to a process of regressive reforms.
In the last decade, the injustices and inequalities inherent to the capitalist mode of production have worsened to the maximum. Through licit and illicit mechanisms, a large part of the oil income has been diverted towards capital, fundamentally towards sectors of the importing and financial bourgeoisieii; in such a way, hundreds of billions of dollars have fled abroad, including the payment for foreign debt of 109 billion dollars between the years 2013 to 2017, as reported by President Maduro himselfiii.
During Maduro’s government, the gap between salaries and profits has widened to the extreme. According to economist Pascualina Curcio “In 2014, of all that was produced in Venezuela, 36% went to the 13 million wage earners, while 31% went to the 400 thousand bosses. In 2017 (last figure published by the BCV) only 18% was distributed to the 13 million workers while the 400 thousand bourgeoisie appropriated no longer 31% of the production but 50%, that is, half.”iv
Anti-worker and anti-union labor policy
Since the first years of the Government of Nicolás Maduro, thousands of layoffs took place in companies of the food sector in the hands of the State: sugar mills, entities attached to the Venezuelan Food Corporation (CVAL), Red de Abastos Bicentenario S.A. (RABSA). The purpose was to dismantle the public production and popular supply networks -created by President Chávez- and move towards their re-privatization, particularly with special advantages for businessman Alex Saab and other groups of private investorsv. Who is Alex Saab?vi
The dismantling of public companies, reduction of personnel and massive violations of labor rights, coincided with policies of the promotion and support of the bourgeoisie, tending to unconstitutionally privilege foreign capital: the approval of the Law of Productive Foreign Investment, with guarantees to foreign capital for capital flight; the misnamed “Anti-Blockade Law”, which facilitates processes of reprivatization without transparency, damaging national sovereignty (concessions and privileges to Chevronvii and other transnational companiesviii) and creating favorable conditions for scandalous acts of corruption (the PDVSA-Cripto schemeix); the Program for Recovery, Growth and Economic Prosperity of August 2018, a misleading name for an adjustment program that established total liberalization of the economy, de facto dollarization, and dismantling of labor rights.
In the application of that neoliberal economic program, in October 2018 the Ministry of Labor formulated Memorandum-Circular 2792x, a government orientation to revoke collective bargaining agreements, leaving without effect the conquests achieved in collective bargaining processes and union struggles dating back to the great oil strikes of 1936 and 1950, the textile strike of 1980, the great union battles in the teaching profession, among many others.
Precisely, as from the application of the neo-liberal adjustment program and Memorandum Circular 2792, practically all discussions of collective bargaining agreements in Venezuela came to a standstill (which had already been happening for some years before), with the exception of some agreements between the employers’ representatives and bureaucratic managers of several declassified trade union federations, subordinated to the Government, which, without holding assemblies or consulting with the workers, agreed on shameful reductions -subscription of fraudulent “collective bargaining agreements” and “minutes of agreements”-, subordinated to the Government, which, without holding assemblies or consulting with the workers, agreed on shameful reductions -subscription of fraudulent “collective bargaining agreements” and “minutes of agreements”-, particularly by reducing salaries and increasing the bonus of remunerations, as was done for example in Petróleos de Venezuela S. A. (PDVSA) and in the Ministry of Education. Without intending it, the Ministry of Labor itself shows in its web page demonstrative data of the virtual paralysis of the discussions and signatures of collective bargaining agreements in our country since 2016xi.
For its part, the Ministry of Labor authorized the fraudulent application in important private companies (Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Nestle, Hotel Melia, among many others), of a norm of the Organic Labor Law (148 of the LOTTT) to disregard wage clauses of the collective bargaining agreements and to carry out massive layoffs. With all these measures and others, the government of the “Workers’ President” activated a systematic labor deregulation without precedents in Venezuela – dismantling of collective bargaining agreements, extreme cheapening of layoffs, authorization of demotions and suspensions of workers, etc. -, with the aim of unloading on the active and retired workers the full weight of the capitalist crisis and of the imperialist coercive measures.
In March 2022, the National Executive, with an Instruction issued by the National Budget Office (ONAPRE), applied an illegal remuneration system to the personnel in the service of the State, in which the benefits provided for in the collective bargaining agreements were reduced by up to 50 and 70 %, affecting mainly workers of greater seniority, both active and retired workers of the public sector. This situation generated immediate protests from workers in the service of the State, with a special role played by retirees and pensionersxii. The petitions before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ)xiii for the annulment of the unconstitutional instructions were unsuccessful, demonstrating once again that all the powers of the State act in line with Maduro’s neoliberal policies.
The government established the wage bonus fraud (payments without rights to severance payments, vacations, profits and others established in the legislation and in the collective bargaining agreements). In May 2024 a “Integral Minimum Income” was decreed -contrary to the legal order-, equivalent to 133.50 dollars, where 97 % ($130) are bonuses without recognition of their character as a salary and the rest ($3.50) is the minimum salary. The monthly minimum salary, since March 2022, is frozen at 130 Bs, which at this moment is equivalent to $3.50; this is also the amount of the pension granted by the social security to which a bonus equivalent to $30 per month is added. It should be noted that, according to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM), the Family Basket (CAF) for the month of July reached a price of $542.94xiv (we do not provide official figures because the Central Bank of Venezuela does not currently publish such information).
To give us an idea of the abysmal salary reduction process in the Maduro era, as opposed to the period of President Chávez: in 2001, the minimum salary plus food bonus reached the figure of 401 dollars per month, then the Venezuelan salary had the highest purchasing power among all salaries in Latin America. But in August 2017, when the first sanctions against the economy were just beginning, the salary had already decreased by almost 90 % and we currently have the fourth lowest salary in the worldxv.
The delivery of subsidized bags of food (CLAP bags), generally without food that contains protein and without daily care products, in no way compensates for the growing precariousness of the living conditions of the working class; on the contrary, it is a mechanism aimed at promoting conformism and social inaction in the face of greater exploitation of labor. The application of the so- called “Sistema Patria” for the payment of payrolls in the public sector, contributes to the loss of the character of income as salary and institutionalizes the non-compliance with the employer’s obligations under collective bargaining agreements and labor law (we recommend an article by economist Manuel Sutherland and other authorsxvi). Consequently, workers who decide to stay in Venezuela survive with various precarious jobs, selling their labor power under the conditions imposed by the employers or in impoverished activities of the so-called informal economy.
The destruction of wages, which violates the Constitution and labor legislation, is the basis of labor deregulation and flexibilization in Venezuela, where work is practically without rights, dismissals are cheaper for the employers, social security is practically nonexistentxvii. The labor market in Venezuela is characterized by deregulation and labor flexibilization. With the over- exploitation of the labor force, high rates of profit are assured to private employers. The Federation of Chambers and Associations of Commerce and Production (FEDECAMARAS), the trade union organization of the big capitalists, celebrates the decisions of Maduro’s Government as an expression of the new pact of the oligarchic elitesxviii.
The main advantages offered by the Venezuelan government to foreign capital with the establishment of Special Economic Zones, are precisely: the cheapest labor force in the continent, the deactivation of bargaining and collective pressure capacities of the workers, and tax privileges for foreign investorsxix.
Violations of trade union freedom serve such purposes. The administrative obstructions and impediments for the registration of unions and for the recognition of union elections are mechanisms used to prevent the development of Venezuelan class unionism and to prevent the fulfillment of the discussions of collective bargaining agreements, by virtue of a legal norm that prohibits union leaders with an expired term (regardless of the causes of such situation) from presenting, processing, discussing and subscribing collective bargaining agreements, or petition statements of a conciliatory or conflictive nature (Article 402 of the LOTTT)xx, also affecting the right to strike. In the height of the violations to free unionization, in many cases, affiliation to the ill-named Bolivarian and Socialist Workers Central, an instrument of collaboration for the imposition of policies in favor of capital and the bureaucratic mafias of the State, is imposed as a condition for the legal registration of base unions. These and other violations have been taken by different trade union centers to the ILO, denouncing the Venezuelan State for violations of international conventions 87 and 98, among others.
Special mention should be made of the situation of the right to strike in Venezuela, which is literally violated due to a regulation of the Labor Law (LOTTT) which establishes the prior admission, by the Labor Inspectorate, of the conflictive list of demands presented by the union organization (Article 487 of the LOTTT); consequently, no Labor Inspectorate admits conflictive lists for the initiation of a strike procedure. In addition, the aforementioned law grants the Minister of Labor the discretionary power to decide in which sectors and labor activities strikes cannot be carried out (Article 484 LOTTT), in addition to other legal and pseudo-legal artifices that make it impossible to carry out legal strikes in Venezuela. The foregoing has led to the realization of “unauthorized” collective union actions, which end up being criminalized with the terrible effects that we will explain below.
The economic policies implemented by Maduro, which unload the weight of the crisis and the effects of imperialist sanctions on the working class, have led to an unprecedented migration with more than 7.7 million refugees, of which 6.5 million were welcomed in countries of the region, as reflected in the statistics of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)xxi.
Persecution and criminalization of workers and trade unionists who fight back
Among the anti-worker and anti-union practices of the Maduro government, the most abhorrent are the criminalization and judicialization of labor struggles. Hundreds of innocent workers, including union leaders, have ended up in jail with rigged trials, without any respect for due process and human rights, in most cases with the following charges: instigation of hatred, association to commit a crime, boycott, and terrorism. This situation is also applied to those who have denounced acts of corruption committed by state bureaucracy hierarchs, mainly in Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA)xxii.
The CUTV and the FNLCT, from 2014 to the present, have directly known, attended and denounced 73 cases of workers and union leaders unjustly prosecuted -a series of cases jointly with the Committee for the Freedom of Imprisoned Workers- some imprisoned and others with precautionary measures of house arrest or under pretrial supervision with restrictions on their civil liberties. These cases have occurred in different labor branches and public and private labor entities: Alentuy, Grupo Souto, INSOPESCA, Hidrocapital, construction, PDVSA, Corpoelec, Lácteos los Andes, Alimex, SIDOR, Ferrominera del Orinoco, air traffic controllers, teachers, MASISA, among others. The CUTV has reported all this situation to the WFTU leadership, which categorically pronounced itself in July 2021xxiii.
One of the most emblematic cases is that of the couple of young PDVSA employees, Alfredo Chirinos and Aryenis Torrealba, who denounced serious acts of corruption (which would later come to public light); Their denunciations were not investigated, but they were arrested by the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) in 2020 and were imprisoned for several years, first in DGCIM jails and then in their home, being finally released; Alfredo Chirinos was brutally tortured to force him to declare himself a “CIA agent”xxiv, they did not succeed, but they were convicted, even without evidence to prove the serious accusations.
Also emblematic is the case presented at Siderúrgica del Orinoco (SIDOR), in June 2023, with the injunction issued to 22 workers for participating in a labor dispute for better wages, also resulting in the imprisonment and opening of a criminal trial against two leaders of the Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Industria Siderúrgica y Similares (SUTISS): Leonardo Azócar and Daniel Romeroxxv. Several months ago, Azócar was released while the trial continues; meanwhile, Romero remains in a prison for common prisoners, despite repeated requests that he be freed due to serious health problems caused by the beating inflicted by the police at the time of his arrest.
Another scandalous fact: a few weeks ago, educator Robert Franco, leader of the Venezuelan Teachers College in the State of Sucre, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, accused without evidence of terrorism and other crimes.
Recently, the CUTV promoted a signature campaign of trade unionists around the world demanding full freedom for all workers and union leaders unjustly imprisoned and prosecuted for organizing or denouncing conditionsxxvi.
However, the government of Nicolás Maduro remains indifferent to these urgent and legitimate demands. The clear objective is to intimidate the working class and the working people as a whole so that there will be no proletarian and popular resistance to the imposition of the aggressive neoliberal policy. Workers who struggle are considered criminals by the Venezuelan government.
Authoritarianism and violation of the political rights of the working class
The Maduro government and the leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) have established in the workplaces of the public sector and in some private companies under government control, an iron political control over the workers, by means of a persistent bosses’ terror. Their aim is not to convince but to impose. In the midst of the profound deterioration in the quality of life, generated by the neo-liberal labor policy, it is forbidden to protest, criticize and disobey the line of blind obedience imposed by the managers and directors of these workplaces, there is even a police and military presence (National Guard, Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar -DGCIM-, Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional -SEBIN-) in important companies, with the purpose of intimidating and eventually crushing workers’ protests, as it is for example in the basic companies of Guayanaxxvii, in areas of the oil industry and in the electricity industry, among others.
The political control of the employers over the workers, especially in the public sector, tends to become more acute in the most recent electoral processes, to the extent that there has been an evident weakening of popular support for the leadership of the PSUV. The moment of maximum pressure towards workers in the service of the State occurred on the occasion of the controversial presidential elections of July 28, a situation which is still in full swing.
Attendance to political-partisan events of the government and voting for Nicolás Maduro, were considered – in general – obligations of a labor nature, under threat of reprimands, sanctions and other employer reprisals that could lead to dismissal and even imprisonment, as is actually happening nowadays after June 28. Although many workers prefer to remain silent for fear of being labeled as “guarimberos”, “terrorists”, “fascists” and running the risk of being apprehended, we have received concrete information of labor harassment, threats, hundreds of dismissals and above all resignations under coercion for political reasonsxxviii, at Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), Metro de Caracas C.A., Conviasa, Corpoelec (electricity industry), Ministry of Health, CANTV (telecommunications), SENIAT (tax superintendence), in several governors’ and mayors’ offices and in many other labor entities. These practices of discrimination and employer terror against the political opinion of workers are often carried out with the participation of police agencies and include searches of cell phones and social networks of the victims, in flagrant violation of constitutional guarantees. To make matters worse, the Labor Inspectorates tend to refuse to process complaints for such illegal dismissals and other discriminatory acts of a political naturexxix.
In the cases of workers who militate in political organizations different and contrary to the PSUV -even leftist ones-, they are usually dismissed or forced to resign under threat of being sent to jail, by means of the staging of a false punishable act. This is the case of the fraudulent set-up committed, at the beginning of July, against the employee in the service of the Ministry of Petroleum, comrade Héctor Alejo Rodríguez, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)xxx. With a serious and reckless accusation of terrorism, without any proof, they not only intend to fire him, but also to open a criminal case against him, in addition to creating a narrative that could be used to criminalize the PCV and its legitimate leadership.
Precisely, it is part of an unprecedented violation of the political rights of the working class and the working people and in particular of their most conscious fighters. The judicial assault plotted by the high government -through the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice-, against the PCV in August 2023, preceded by a campaign of defamation, political persecution and absolute media censorship against communist militants and their legitimate leadershipxxxi. In such a way, it’s true militancy was stripped of its legal personality and of the electoral card of the PCV, handing it over to a group of activists of the PSUV, who currently usurp the representation of the PCV. Consequently, the true Communist Party is de facto illegalized in Venezuela.
The judicial intervention of the PCV, as well as of other leftist organizations, plus the refusal of the CNE to register a new entity for electoral purposes presented by revolutionary and leftist organizations and individuals, led to the fact that in the presidential elections the working class did not have an alternative candidacy, which would question the two bourgeois poles causing the current national crisisxxxii.
The current political-electoral controversy in Venezuela, generated by the recent presidential elections, shows, in its maximum expression, the extremely authoritarian and undemocratic orientation of the Venezuelan government. This is evidenced both by the refusal of the government- dominated National Electoral Council (CNE) to deliver the results of the voting tables, publish the minutes and carry out the audits ordered by law, as well as by the brutal repression unleashed against the mostly peaceful popular protests demanding electoral transparency. President Maduro himself reported more than 2 thousand detainees and 24 deathsxxxiii.
Those detained for political reasons in connection with the protests after July 28th are mostly young people and workers (including dozens of journalists) and almost all of them are inhabitants of popular neighborhoods. But according to the government, all those who protested on July 29 and 30 are terrorists and criminals, a situation that has enhanced the practices of police extortion of young people and workers in popular areas, accompanied by irregular police work that the government has assigned to communal councils and PSUV grassroots structuresxxxiv.
Certainly, in the violent events following the presidential elections, there was participation of extremist groups of the right wing opposition that carried out some isolated acts of vandalism and crimes, but these were not dominant in the popular demonstrations; on the other hand, the Government sent to the streets both police agencies and para-police groups of civilians (wrongly called “colectivos”) that shot at demonstrators and carried out all kinds of aggressions. Police officers and “colectivos” carried out and continue to carry out home raids and arrests without warrants, in massive violation of due process established in the Constitutionxxxv.
In the midst of such serious situations, we request international class solidarity to demand an end to the repression and violence against the people, freedom for those unjustly imprisoned, that the harassment and dismissals of workers for their political position be stopped and reversed; that the current political-electoral crisis be resolved with total transparency, without interference from foreign powers and in accordance with the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, so that the National Electoral Council – respecting the popular sovereignty expressed in the suffrage-, displays with citizen verification the votes obtained at each polling station.
For our part, from the Venezuelan class-conscious trade union movement, we continue to promote the unity of the working class to fight for the restitution of seriously violated constitutional rights and against pro-capital policies, whoever implements them. We oppose imperialist interventionism and coup attempts, as well as the ongoing destruction of the Venezuelan workforce through a ruthless capitalist-neoliberal adjustment program and extremely authoritarian practices. No matter who governs, rights are defended!
Pedro Eusse General Secretary of CUTV Caracas, September 2024
i https://www.wftucentral.org/download/FNLCT-CUTV-Alerta Amenaza de Agresión-Militar-Imperialista-en-Venezuela.pdf
iihttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.elnacional.com/economia/bcv-ha-
inyectado-mas-de-4-000-millones-de-dolares-la-banca-en-lo-que-va-de- ano/amp/
iii https://albaciudad.org/2021/01/presidente-maduro-mensaje-anual-memoria- y-cuenta-2021-asamblea-nacional/
iv Artículo de Pasqualina Curcio: El salario, altos precios y crudas realidades económicas | La iguana TV
v https://www.elimpulso.com/2018/11/17/denuncian-que-empresa-salva-food- es-manipulada-por-alex-saab-y-alvaro-pulido-17nov/ https://armando.info/llega-forum-se-van-las-tiendas-de-alex-saab/
vihttps://x.com/monitoreamos/status/1525885871857225736?t=DLBtbT0OCE
vii https://www.bancaynegocios.com/martin-philipsen-es-nombrado-como- gerente-general-de-la-empresa-mixta-petropiar/
viii
ix https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_PDVSA-Cripto
x https://www.laizquierdadiario.com.ve/DOCUMENTO-Que-es-el-Memorando- 2792-y-por-que-los-trabajadores-deben-exigir-su-anulacion
xihttp://www.mpppst.gob.ve/mpppstweb/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/Convenciones-Colectivas-Homologadas.pdf
xii https://eldiario.com/2022/04/26/protesta-venezuela-trabajadores-jubilados-y- pensionados/
xiii https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/cutv-protesta-ante-el-tsj-en- jornada-internacional-de-lucha-convocada-por-la-fsm/
xivhttps://x.com/contrapuntovzla/status/1826268016583012582?t=l3mc1zVT4T
xv https://politikaucab.net/2023/04/04/venezuela-es-el-cuarto-salario-mas-bajo- del-mundo-luego-de-60-aumentos-ilusion-monetaria/
xvi https://doi.org/10.14201/alh.29735
xviihttps://www.instagram.com/p/C4hI8iLs6lM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&
xviii https://venezuela-news.com/queremos-seguir-apostando-por-venezuela-el- compromiso-de-empresarios-en-conferencia-nacional-por-el-dialogo-la-paz-y- la-convivencia/
xix http://www.psuv.org.ve/temas/noticias/ley-zona-economica-especial-busca- desarrollar-otros-sectores-productivo-pais-2/
xx Ley Orgánica del Trabajo, de los Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (LOTTT) Gaceta Oficial – Búsqueda (bing.com)
xxii https://m.aporrea.org/trabajadores/n346467.html
xxiii https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2021/07/06/la-fsm-condena-los-ataques- contra-trabajadores-y-sindicalistas-en-venezuela/
xxiv https://youtu.be/rKjQCGmwD38?si=CkWuOoGiuAIYXeg_
xxv https://soynuevaprensadigital.com/npd/bolivar-sutiss-leonardo-azocar-y- los-trabajadores-sidoristas/
xxvi https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2024/06/11/mas-de-500-sindicalistas-del- mundo-exigen-la-liberacion-de-los-trabajadores-presos-en-venezuela/
xxvii https://www.aporrea.org/trabajadores/n383579.html
xxviii https://laverdad.com/obligan-a-mas-de-100-trabajadores-de-pdvsa-a- renunciar-por-razones-politicas/
xxixhttps://x.com/FNLCT/status/1831052623954227255?t=S2-
xxx https://acortar.link/w3D2hZ
xxxi https://youtu.be/AlsezuF1bMg?si=XoRsXasaCgiVYl4K
xxxii https://m.aporrea.org/ideologia/n391588.html
xxxiiihttps://comitelibertadtrabajadorxs.wordpress.com/2024/08/12/boletin-1-
cese-a-la-represion-basta-de-criminalizar-la-pobreza/
xxxiv https://laldea.site/2024/08/16/despues-de-la-represion-la-extorsion/?s=35
xxxvhttps://x.com/NicmerEvans/status/1819458481285746777?s=08 detención irregular