6-10-05,9:21am

A sharp blow was dealt to the Venezuelan labor movement and Chavez government on April 20-22, 2005 at the 16th Congress of the ORIT, held in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. ORIT is the continental section in the Americas of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

As you may know, the Bush administration is dead-set on getting the international labor movement to condemn the Chavez government for alleged “violations of trade union rights” in Venezuela. They also allege the newly formed independent trade union federation, the National Workers Union (UNT), is not legitimate. They claim, falsely, that it does not represent the Venezuelan labor movement.

Thanks to the efforts of trade unionists around the world who endorsed the broad-based campaign of the International Liaison Committee (ILC), the attempt to condemn the Chavez government via the ILO Complaint filed jointly by the bosses´ association Fedecamaras and the scab CTV union federation did not succeed at the March 8-22, 2005 meeting of the ILO in Geneva. The Bush administration -- supported, alas, by the AFL-CIO´s Solidarity Center -- did not have the votes to condemn the Venezuelan government.

While the Fedecamaras/CTV complaint was not defeated, as we would have liked, it was pushed back and referred to the November 2005 session of the International Labor Bureau of the ILO. While we had not won the war, we had won an important victory. [See joint UNT-ILC Communiqué below.] The UNT as well as the Venezuelan government thanked the ILC for its support in this effort. They realize, as we do, that the U.S. government wants to set the stage for a direct military intervention in Venezuela -- and that one key piece for this is to secure a condemnation of the Venezuelan government for alleged “violations of labor rights.” This would permit Bush, the No. 1 warmaker and unionbuster in the world, to claim that Venezuela is a “rogue state” that must be removed by force.

No sooner had we won an important battle at the ILO, however, the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center regrouped and led the charge at the 16th Congress of ORIT. There, unfortunately, the Fedecamaras/CTV complaint was endorsed by a majority of the unions gathered in Brasilia. Resolution No. 9, which was adopted by the ORIT delegates, states the following under Point 6: “The Congress of CIOSL/ORIT reaffirms its preoccupation with the Complaint against the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela insofar as its practices violate trade union freedoms, and the Congress deplores the fact that the commitments made by said country in relation to the principles and practice of the ILO have not been met.” We are sending you below a report by Julio Turra on this issue and the debate it provoked within the Brazilian CUT trade union federation, whose representative at the ORIT meeting, Rafael Freire, voted for the resolution supporting the Fedecamaras/CTV Complaint, in violation of the CUT’s stance opposing the Complaint.

At its recent expanded National leadership meeting on May 10-13, the CUT reaffirmed its opposition to the ILO Complaint against Venezuela and is now urging unions across the continent to do the same.

Clearly, this is a matter we have to move on quickly in the United States.

More than ever, it is urgent for trade unions locals, central labor councils, state federations and national unions to urge the national AFL-CIO leadership to drop its support for this ILO Complaint.

We also must urge the AFL-CIO to endorse the resolution adopted in June 2004 by the convention of the California Federation of Labor calling for U.S. Hands Off Venezuela. The resolution also calls upon the AFL-CIO to refuse the multi-millions of dollars given to the Solidarity Center by the State Department through the National Endowment of Democracy (NED) to impose the corporate policies of the U.S. government in attacking workers, their trade unions and the governments they defend.

At the end of July, the national AFL-CIO convention will take place in Chicago. It is important that a resolution on this question of defense of Venezuela’s sovereignty can make it to the convention floor for a vote.

Please join us in promoting this effort far and wide in the U.S. trade union movement.

In solidarity, Alan Benjamin and Alan Benjamin Co-Coordinators, OWC Continuations Committee

OWC CAMPAIGN NEWS - distributed by the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights, c/o S.F. Labor Council, 1188 Franklin St., #203, San Francisco, CA 94109.