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Venezuela: Unions must unite to fight bosses

While Hugo Chavez was touring Europe, workers in Venezuela were preparing for the second conference of the National Workers Union (UNT).

Nearly 3,000 delegates attended the 2nd conference of the UNT at the end of May. Delegates representing some 1.2 million workers organised in 700 local unions and 16 national unions queued for hours to get in – some up to 12 hours on Thursday 25 may. But by Saturday the conference had broken up in acrimony with different tendencies within the federation holding separate meetings.

The UNT was formed out of the struggle both within and outside the old federation, the CTV. The CTV pursued class collaboration with the bosses and supported the coup and oil lock out against President Chavez. The UNT has taken advantage of new labour laws to unionise workers and its success was marked by this year’s Mayday rallies where the UNT had 500,000 workers and the CTV less than a 1,000.

The opening of the conference was addressed by a series of international speakers from Brazil, Argentina and Britain – represented by the NUJ’s general secretary Jeremy Dear. However, when the UNT general secretary Marcelo Maspero spoke, chants of “elections, elections, we want elections” went up and this soon became the key demand of the majority in the conference and one which precipitated its premature end. But the demand for elections is an expression of deeper divisions over the direction the UNT should take.

The leader of the majority grouping Orlando Chirino, who is from the oil industry and had the support of about 70 per cent of the delegates on the Saturday, is in favour of defending Chavez against imperialism but remaining independent of his movement. The Chirinos grouping is organised as the Class Struggle Current and was calling for the election of an UNT leadership at the conference – since its inception in August 2003 the leadership has been self-appointed.

The minority grouping, the Bolivarian Workers Force (FBT), grew out of the struggles against the involvement of the old corrupt trade union the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, and is more supportive of Chavez and his Bolivarian project. The minority wanted to postpone elections to concentrate on re-electing Chavez later this year; the cry in the hall from this section was for “10 million votes for Chavez".

In letting the young union federation fall apart on this issue the leaders of both sides did a disservice to the workers of Venezuela.

Dangers

Despite Chavez’s popularity in Venezuela and abroad, the working class is under attack and in some cases still weighed down with the traditions of bureaucratism and class-collaboration associated with the CTV (many CTV bureaucrats jumped ship when the UNT was formed and joined it).

Bosses at the Droguería Race pharmacy company have denied recognition to the local union, while management at the steel contractor Orimalca have ripped up their collective agreement with the local steel union. Workers at Sel-fex, which makes textiles, have occupied the factory for six months and have just been told by the bosses that the company is bankrupt. So far there have been no moves by union leaders to support or call for its nationalisation or workers control. In Carabobo state workers are fighting moves to privatise health care.

Furthermore there are still laws that undermine workers rights and conditions inherited by Chavez from the old Fourth Republic. They are still on the statute books and along with some laws passed in the early days of his presidency against unions that need to be scrapped.

The left at the Congress

A small current at the conference was the Revolutionary Marxist Current (RMC) linked to the International Marxist Tendency (the main force behind the Hands of Venezuela campaign in Britain). This group argues that the conference should have discussed a programme for the UNT and an action plan to put the working class at the centre of the revolutionary process in Venezuela. Such a programme, it says, needs to fight for workers control of the factories, nationalise industry under democratic control with the participation of the working class and the abolition of the capitalist state and its replacement with a revolutionary workers state.

This is certainly true but the RMC counter posed this to the need for electing a democratic leadership, which it argued was not the priority. On priorities they sided with the Chavistas’ emphasis on campaigning to re-elect the president. As they put it “The battle to re-elect the President is inseparable from the struggle to resolve the grave problems that the workers and the vast majority of the population continue to suffer, and from the need to build.” Far from it, the real battle is for working class independence, to build a revolutionary workers party that can take power. This, not Colonel Chavez, is the only force that can resolve the “grave problems” that the workers and poor of Venezuela face.

Indeed the RMC made accusations of “ultraleftism” at those who “want to split the UNT away from the Bolivarian movement". This is no doubt a veiled reference to the Party of Revolution and Socialism, which is critical of the UNT’s connections to the government, and is linked to the Chirino grouping.

While stating that it is the duty of socialists would be to stand shoulder to shoulder with the masses to defend Chavez from imperialist attack, it also calls for the formation of a “mass revolutionary party” to end capitalism and fight for socialism. There is even talk of it standing candidates against the Bolivarian movement in local elections to expose the state bureaucrats or “capitalists who wear red berets".

The UNT conference was a missed opportunity and the damage must be repaired immediately. But if the UNT is to succeed then it must develop a bold programme to challenge the right of the bosses to manage and to won property and be willing to defend itself. Already there are occupations and experiments in workers control, which are being debated nationally and on live TV. At Alcasa aluminium plant workers are even having weapons training behind the factory. The working class is learning in the heat of struggle what needs to be done to take the revolution forward. We must develop and generalise the best elements of workers organisation and politics.

-Put the UNT leaders on the average wage of the workers and make them recallable delegates.

-Organise the unorganised – unionise the informal sector and the unemployed.

For militant class struggle unionism – defend any workers attacked by the bosses with industrial action. For solidarity strikes including all out state wide or national strikes. No cuts in jobs or pay.

Build a strong national federation linked to the peasants and the poor in the barrios. Make the working class the leader of the revolution.

Occupy the factories and fight for workers control of production.

Fight for the nationalisation of industry and a democratic planned economy.

Unions must arm and train workers to defend themselves from imperialist attacks, and military provocations. Take the weapons promised by Chavez and give them to the workers and peasants.

A militant federation such as the UNT can make an enormous contribution in taking the revolution forward. But it also must have a political weapon against the reformists and timeservers that inhabit positions of power in the state and Bolivarian movement. The trade unions must launch their own mass party, which can appeal to workers and the poor on the land and in the shantytowns. It can win support from the many good elements in the Bolivarian movement who want to take the revolution forward but are frustrated by the reformists and inertia of the state. Revolutionaries in the UNT must campaign for the federation to launch such a party as an urgent necessity.

A mass workers party committed to workers control, nationalisation and overthrowing the existing state, can defend the gains already made by going further and making them permanent with a socialist revolution against capitalism. It must create a new far more democratic state than the Bolivarian Fifth Republic: a revolutionary workers state based on workers councils.

Workers control and co management

The occupation of factories is one of the key developments of the Venezuelan revolution. Through it, workers learn how to manage their own factory and exert their power against that of the bosses. The struggle can also provide a school for socialism with discussions and debates about the way forward. The factory committee can provide a political and organisational centre for workers and links with other factories. But it takes various forms and sometimes can take the working class down the wrong road of managing capitalism.

One of the most well known takeovers is the paper manufacturer Venepal (now known as Invepal). The company went bankrupt putting 900 workers out of work. After along legal fight the government took over the company with the state having 51 per cent of shares and the rest going to the workforce; a workplace assembly makes decisions about the company.

There is no longer a union at the plant, rather workers are represented by a co-operative. Profits or benefits go to individual workers as opposed to being put back into the national plan. The leadership of the plant was recalled in a mass meeting in November last year by 260 votes to 20 and a new leadership was elected. But this democratic decision by a mass assembly was not recognised by the Minister of Popular Economy, which also demands a majority say on the management board because “the state owns 51 per cent". This just shows the dangers of this type of “co-management".

Another takeover has occurred at the aluminium company Alcasa, which had been losing money for years, where a similar split between workers and state ownership has taken place. The 2,700 workers now elect their own managers – Carlos Lanz a former guerrilla now heads the company. In less than a year productivity has increased by 10 per cent.

Rafael Rodriguez, who is in charge of economic development, highlights the differences between Alcasa and the tradition of social democratic co-management in Germany. For him co-management is a transition towards self-management and building socialism in a “practical manner". The plant also provides schools, health care and weapons training.

By contrast at the state electricity company Cadafe workers have two representatives on the five person co-ordinating committee, which can only recommend action. Workers at the plant including Fetraleac (which co-ordinates power workers) have demonstrated about the lack of workers involvement in running the plant.

There was a wave of occupations during the bosses’ lockout but it receded shortly after. Now however, the example of Venepal has put workers control back on the political agenda with numerous occupations and demands for nationalisations throughout the country. It has even gained support from Chavez himself who sees it has a particular form of reformist “socialism for the 21st Century".

Earlier this year the Revolutionary Front of Occupied Factories was set up, arising out last year’s conference that brought together examples of occupations and workers control throughout Latin America. The front’s main aim is the “extension of expropriation and nationalisation of Venezuelan industry under workers control". But the obstruction by state officials also shows that whatever Chavez has said about workers running factories there is still much opposition to the idea within the Bolivarian movement and the Labour Ministry.

Without a national strategy based on seizing state power, such factories remain only islands of co-operatives in a sea of capitalism. It is necessary to fight for workers control alongside nationalisation and for a democratic national plan and that means challenging the reformists and the ownership of private property.

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