Speech: to Venezuela Solidarity Campaign conference
Speech: to Venezuela Solidarity Campaign conference
April 29, 2013
Session: “The forward march of labour – guaranteeing workers rights in Venezuela”
The revolution has achieved a great deal for the poor and working class in Venezuela.
The legacy of Hugo Chavez is to be found in these achievements. Once people have been raised up, it is much harder to drive them down again.
From the point of view of the labour movement in Britain, some of the achievements may seem modest first. While other achievements just seem extraordinary.
What is certain is that we can find a great deal of inspiration from the work of Chavez and the Chavistas.
Let us take the minimum wage as an example. If we take into account the food vouchers, it comes to around 700 dollars a month.
From a British perspective this seems very poor. Yet it was achieved in a few years as a result of the revolution.
In Britain, it took unions around 200 years to win a minimum wage.
Or let us compare the electoral registration drive in Venezuela. Between 1998 and 2012 those on the register rose from 11 million to 19 million.
This is an extraordinary achievement. Meanwhile, in Britain we face the prospect of losing millions from the register – particularly in poorer areas – if individual, rather than household registration goes ahead.
This is surely the real difference. Venezuela is starting from a much poorer and more difficult base than Britain.
More:
http://www.cwu.org/billy-hayes/?p=846
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