10-11-05, 9:59 am
The trade union movement in Venezuela has undergone important transformations in the last four years. From being led by mainly class-collaborationist leaders more closely tied to the oligarchy than to the working class (in the Venezuelan Confederation of Workers – CTV), the new trade union federation, the National Workers Union of Venezuela (UNT) has taken the lead in organizing on the basis of winning gains for workers and building their political power. The UNT gained official recognition in 2003.
At its annual conference in September, as a signal of preliminary recognition of the UNT, the British labor federation, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), voted for a resolution that expressed support for Venezuela, rejected US intervention, and criticized sabotage of the Chávez administration's reforms by Venezuela's economic elites. The resolution urged the establishment of relations between the TUC and the UNT.
Orlando Chirinos, the leader of UNT who sat in on the TUC deliberations on Venezuela, told an interviewer recently that his work with the international trade union community aims to 'explain that the UNT is working to build an autonomous trade union body in Venezuela, which is class-based and adheres to democratic principles.' Chirinos added that it was important for UNT to educate international unions about the true nature of the reforms inaugurated by the Chávez administration.
TUC's show of support comes on the heels of the UN-affiliated International Labor Organization's (ILO) rejection of a complaint put forward jointly by CTV and Venezuela's Chamber of Commerce (Fedecameras) against the Chávez administration and the subsequent vote to remove the CTV from the ILO's governing body. Other representative unions in the ILO agreed that CTV no longer represents the majority of Venezuelan workers, and that it is not the main federation of unions in Venezuela.
For some time there has been a growing chasm between the interests of the leadership of the CTV and those of unionized and non-unionized workers in Venezuela. CTV's leadership notoriously backed the anti-government lockout led by business elites and conservative political movement leaders in December 2002. The purpose of the lockout was to strangle Venezuela's economy in order to provoke unrest and to bring down the Chávez government.
Unionized managerial workers in the CTV destroyed computers and equipment needed to run the oil refineries, and stole and damaged other government property in their effort to shut down the economy. The lockout, mainly aimed at the oil sector but also spreading to other industries, failed when pro-Chávez workers entered the factories and plants and kept them running on their own without management supervision. In a very short period of time, the workers partially restored the oil and electrical industries.
CTV also was active in the events surrounding the April 2002 coup against Hugo Chávez. CTV President Carlos Ortega, who left Venezuela in 2003 and tries to represent himself as a political exile, continues to call openly for the illegal overthrow of the duly-elected Venezuelan government.
After the business-led lockout in 2002, CTV complained when thousands of supervisors and mangers in the state-owned oil company (PDVSA), who had supported the anti-government sabotage campaign, were removed from their positions. Other than replacing them, very few legal actions were taken against the workers who had supported the sabotage, except in a handful of cases where theft or damage could be proven.
Over the past few decades, CTV had developed deep ties to the pro-business community. Initially, this policy served the useful purpose of countering draconian anti-union policies initiated by ultra-right governments, which sometimes included assassinations of trade union leaders. But since the 1980s, this relationship has led to the federation's refusal to oppose blatantly anti-worker policies such as privatization and so-called free trade.
Currently, members of the rightwing anti-government Democratic Action Party, which participated in the April 2002 coup to unseat the democratically elected Chávez, dominate the union. Democratic Action accepted money from US government sources to build opposition to Chávez and to provoke violent unrest both in the months leading up to the April coup and during the December lockout. Democratic Action also accepted money from US government sources during the recall referendum campaign in mid-2004.
Some affiliates of the international trade union movement raised legitimate concerns when the Venezuelan government began to approach trade union leaders, who opposed CTV's practices and supported the Chávez administration, about building a parallel union movement in 2001. Some union activists were concerned that the new organization would not be independent of the Chávez administration and thus would only be able to speak in a limited way for workers outside of the government's agenda.
In general this concern is legitimate, but when applied to Venezuela the real situation needs clarification in order to avoid misunderstanding. It is true that the Chávez government proposed a new federation of unions, but only after coming under attack repeatedly by the CTV. And it must be remembered that the CTV didn't confine its attack to rhetoric, contract negotiations, or electoral mobilizations, but actively participated in violent anti-government activities. (Imagine the outcry if the AFL-CIO decided to help bring down the Bush administration by extralegal means in advance of the elections by aligning with other social forces intent on violent overthrow.)
While there is a section of the UNT leadership, nationally and locally, that strongly supports Chávez, it is clear that overall the UNT's stance is independent. Why shouldn't the working-class-rooted trade union movement and its leadership support Chávez? The president's policies have re-opened many industries shut down during previous administrations and currently by anti-Chávez business owners. It has raised the country's minimum wage, initiated wide-ranging and successful health care and education reforms, provided economic stimulus aimed at helping poor and working-class families, and initiated numerous public works’ programs and many other pro-worker policies. Most importantly, the Venezuelan government is more and more siding with unions in their effort to organize new workers.
But as a recent report by Alessandro Parma of Venezuelanalysis.com shows, UNT leaders remain critical of the pace of reform as it relates directly to Venezuela's workers. One outspoken critic of the conditions for workers in Venezuela is UNT head Orlando Chirinos himself. Chirinos, a strong advocate for the Chávez administration and for the reforms, openly criticizes the government on numerous fronts.
While he applauds Chávez's policy on the minimum wage, Chirinos points out that it hasn't been applied uniformly across the country. Although it is good, he says, that the president supports workers' rights to higher wages, Chávez's 'unilateral declarations' on the matter cannot solve continuing problems in workers' relations with their employers. The labor movement has to fight for workers and empower workers to fight for themselves in order to win that policy as a reality.
Chirinos, as Parma writes, also advocates that unions must fight for a stronger labor policy regarding the power of bosses to fire or replace employees. On the condition of public-sector workers generally, Chirinos was quoted in the Caracas press as saying, 'We have a public sector that pretends its workers are happy when they aren't.'
'We need conditions,' he added, 'that suit the needs of the workers – for the defense of the country, its sovereignty, and independence from imperialism.'
Overall, Chirinos' vision is one of enabling workers through their trade union movement to win gains for themselves, rather than have them solely mandated from Caracas. While this vision might be expected to put the UNT leader at odds with the Chávez administration because of its implicit criticism, it appears that cooperation continues on key elements of labor policy, and that discussions between the UNT and the government remain friendly and cooperative.
--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
