Chavez Comments Spark Discontent Among Venezuelan Electrical Workers

[spanza]

Chavez Comments Spark Discontent Among Venezuelan Electrical Workers
(or Navas in a 3-2 count, my comment)

Caracas, October 27, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Comments by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday that implied that Venezuela’s Federation of Electrical Sector Workers (FETRAELEC) was acting to sabotage the electricity sector have sparked indignation among electrical workers.

FETRAELEC has been in negotiations for a single industry-wide collective contract with the management of the state-owned electricity company CORPOELEC for over a year.

CORPOELEC was formed in 2007 after the sector was nationalised and fourteen regional electricity companies, some of them privately owned and some of them already state owned, were merged into a single company.

Although a law was passed after the sector was nationalised, mandating significant changes in the company, including the unification of the management structure and provisions for a single industry wide contract, this has not been implemented.

Workers say that the management of the regional companies are opposed to the process of nationalisation and unification of the company, and are acting to impede a single collective contract.

The dispute also occurs in the context of a growing crisis in the electricity sector including several major power outages and electricity rationing in much of the interior of the country.

The crisis came to a head last week when Chavez intervened into the sector and announced the formation of a new Ministry of Electricity and named National Assembly Legislator Angel Rodriguez as the new minister and president of CORPOELEC.

A US$4.3 billion project to expand the Manuel Piar Hydroelectric Project in Tacoma, Bolivar state, was also announced.

Chavez also called for participation of the workers in the running of the company, which was the first clause of the collective contract. However, three of the most controversial clauses are still under dispute.

During a press conference last Friday, Angel Navas, president of FETRALEC explained, that the first has to do with the equalization of the salaries of the employees of the 14 companies.

The second calls for a wage increase of Bs.F. 1600 (US$744) per month for those “workers whose situation would not be improved with the equalization of salaries,” said Navas.

And the third clause has to do with the compensation of Bs.F. 1,250 (US$581), per employee, for each of the 14 months that collective contract has been expired.

The workers demands are “not negotiable” and if they have not received a response by the end of the month, FETRALEC will declare itself to be in “conflict” with the state-owned company, Navas stated.

Amidst media reports that the electrical workers were threatening to strike Chavez said on Sunday, “We want the electrical workers to participate in solving the faults, but now I read a statement from the president saying that FETRALEC has declared itself in conflict…Workers have never had what they now have in Venezuela. Now, at this time, Comrade Navas, are you going to threaten with a conflict? Now?”

The demands of the union to equalise salaries and for compensation “with I don’t know how many billions of Bolivars,” appears to be rather thoughtless, “unless they want to sabotage the revitalisation plan,” Chavez said.

“Are we co-responsible or not? I assume my responsibility. Assume yours Navas, with the workers,” he continued.

Responding to Chavez’s comments Navas told Marea Socialista Press on Monday, “Not only do we assume our responsibility; we want to make clear that since this process began, this federation has assumed its responsibility in the electrical sector.”

“Despite all the attacks we've had from the bureaucracy, from the enemies that have entrenched themselves in the industry, to do business, to generate patronage, despite all these confrontations, we have been part of the revolutionary process, working for a real transformation of the electricity sector.”

“They want to label the Electrical Workers Federation as a money-grubbing, economist federation, and not as a federation that for many years has been accompanying the revolutionary process, unleashing a fight against bureaucracy, against the opposition that at various times in the process were trying to sabotage the electricity sector.”

“But this has a lot to do with the misinformation from the opposition media who want to create a situation of confrontation. Lamentably, when we called a press conference the state media refused to come and report the truth of what we are saying as a federation.”

He explained that declaring a state of “conflict” with the state company, did not mean that FETRALEC was planning a strike as had been reported in the opposition media.

Rather, “We are changing our demands from a conciliatory to a confrontational character, which is a mechanism established by law,” he said, confirming that electrical workers would guarantee the electricity service throughout the country.

Chavez’s comments were also rejected by the pro-revolution National Union of Workers (UNT). In a joint statement UNT leaders Stalin Pérez Borges, Marcela Máspero, Orlando Pérez, and Pedro Eusse called on Chavez to “speak directly with the legitimate representatives of the electrical sector workers” before making comments based on media reports.

“Far from sabotaging the electricity sector, the workers, along with their Federation (FETRAELEC) have been the most consistent in finding solutions to the serious crisis in this sector,” they said.

“What is the alternative to the single collective contract the workers are proposing? What are those proposals of those who report to the President? To maintain inequality within the sector? Go back to having fourteen collective agreements within the same supposedly unified corporation? To maintain the fourteen boards that are crippling the company and wasting money on executive salaries?” the UNT leaders asked.

“So what's the real truth? The reality is that this bureaucracy has increased since the decree to unify the industry and it lies to everyone. With those words uttered in Hello President, President Chavez, whether he intends to or not, is supporting the plan of the same bureaucrats who are sabotaging unification and destroying the company,” the statement continued.

Angel Rodriguez, the new electricity minister has convoked a meeting with FETRALEC tonight in order to try and resolve the dispute.


http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4901

[Braulio]

1. When the state becomes the employer, unions are destroyed

Nations where the government gains control over the means of production (also known as "communist" countries) don't have very powerful unions - either the state destroys the unions and controls them, or the unions destroy the state (as they did in Poland, led by Lech Walesa). In a communist society, the state as the employer replaces the private owner, the communist hierarchy becomes "management", so imagine what happens, if management also controls the police, the courts, the congress, and the presidency...they proceed to attack workers' rights, drive down wages, and otherwise turn the union movement into a puppet of the state.

This process is under way in Venezuela, where the government is slowly taking over the means of production. As the state becomes the owner, then the conflict between the working class and the government becomes inevitable. The ugly truth is that in places like Venezuela, the working class is the one which loses the most. The rich will pack and move to Miami, the poor who never have worked in a useful function or will never work, receive a few handouts and keep on living off the dole.

But real workers get abused, exploited, and eventually lose their motivation. In the old Soviet Union, workers used to have a saying "They make believe they pay us well, so we make believe we work hard". This is also happening in Cuba, and the other lone stalwarts of Marxism such as North Korea - the workers refuse to work because they see their effort isn't rewarded by an entrenched communist oligarchy. Human nature doesn't take well to the paternalism and reactionary control the communists try to impose, and ultimately, the working class itself takes care of the problem, as the Solidarity union workers did to communism in Poland. But it takes a long time before the working cadres gain the political awareness and understand that communism as dreamed up by Marx and Engels is just an utopia, and proceed to change the system.