[News] Venezuela - Class struggle heats up over in battle for workers' control

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Venezuela


Class struggle heats up over in battle for workers' control

July 27, 2009 By Federico Fuentes
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/804/41392

Caracas: On July 22, Venezuelan President Hugo 
Chavez again declared his complete support for 
the proposal by industrial workers for a new 
model of production based on workers' control.

This push from Chavez, part of the socialist 
revolution, aims at transforming Venezuela's 
basic industry. However, it faces resistance from 
within the state bureaucracy and the revolutionary movement.

Presenting his government's "Plan Socialist 
Guayana 2009-2019", Chavez said the state-owned 
companies in basic industry have to be transformed into "socialist companies".

The plan was the result of several weeks of 
intense discussion among revolutionary workers 
from the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG). 
The CVG includes 15 state-owned companies in the 
industrial Guayana region involved in steel, iron 
ore, mineral and aluminium production.

The workers' roundtables were established after a 
May 21 workshop, where industrial workers raised 
radical proposals for the socialist transformation of basic industry.

Chavez addressed the workshop in support of many of the proposals.

But events between the May 21 workshop and 
Chavez's July 22 recent announcement reveal much 
of the nature of the class struggle inside revolutionary Venezuela.

Chavez's announcement is part of an offensive 
launched after the revolutionary forces won the 
February 15 referendum on the back of a big 
organisational push that involved hundreds of 
thousands of people in the campaign.

The vote was to amend the constitution to allow 
elected officials to stand for re-election ­ 
allowing Chavez, the undisputed leader of the 
Venezuelan revolution, to stand for president in 2012.

With oil revenue drying up due to the global 
economic crisis, the government is using this new 
position of strength to tackle corruption and 
bureaucracy, while increasing state control over 
strategic economic sectors. This aims to ensure 
the poor are not made to pay for the crisis.

Workers' control

On May 21, Chavez publicly threw his lot in with 
the Guayana workers, announcing his government's 
granting of demands for better conditions in 
state-owned companies and the nationalisation of 
a number of private companies whose workers were 
involved in industrial disputes.

"When the working class roars, the capitalists tremble", Chavez told the

To chants of "this is how you govern!", Chavez 
announced his agreement with a series of measures proposed by workers.

However, like an old train that begins to rattle 
loudly as it speeds up, more right-wing sectors 
within the revolutionary movement also began to tremble.

With each new attack against the political and 
economic power that the capitalist class still 
holds in Venezuela ­ and uses to destabilise the 
country ­ the revolution is also forced to confront internal enemies.

The radical measures announced at the May 21 
workshop were the result of the workers discussion over the previous two days.

Chavez called on workers to wage an all-out 
struggle against the "mafias" rife in the management of state companies.

Chavez then designated planning minister Jorge 
Giordani and labour minister Maria Cristina 
Iglesias, who both played a key role in the 
workshop, to follow up these decisions by 
establishing a series of workers' roundtables in the CVG industries.

The CVG complex is on the verge of collapse in 
large part due to the privatisation push by 
pre-Chavez governments in the 1990s. State 
companies were run down in preparation to be sold off cheaply.

In the Sidor steel plant, for example, the number 
of workers dropped from more than 30,000 to less 
than 15,000 before it was privatised in 1998.

Chavez's 1998 election stopped further 
privatisation. But the government has had to 
confront large scale corruption within the CVG, 
continued deterioration of machinery and, more 
recently, the sharp drop in prices of aluminium and steel.
The plan drafted up by workers and given to 
Chavez on June 9 raised the possibility of 
"converting the current structural crisis of 
capitalism" into "an opportunity" for workers to 
move forward in "the construction of socialism, 
by assuming in a direct manner, control over 
production of the basic companies in the region".

The report set out nine strategic lines ­ 
including workers' control of production; 
improvement of environmental and work conditions; 
and public auditing of companies and projects.

Measures proposed include the election of 
managers and management restructuring; collective 
decision-making by workers and local communities; 
the creation of workers' councils; and opening companies' books.

The measures aim to achieve "direct control of 
production without mediations by a bureaucratic structure".

The report said such an experience of workers' 
control would undoubtedly act as an example for 
workers in "companies in the public sector 
nationally, such as those linked to hydrocarbons or energy companies".


Bureaucracy bites back

Sensing the danger such an example represents to 
its interests, bureaucratic sections within the 
revolutionary movement, as well as the US-backed 
counter-revolutionary opposition, moved quickly to try and stop this process.

A wave of strikes and protests were organised in 
the aluminium sector during June and July, taking 
advantage of workers' disgruntlement with corrupt managers and payments owed.

The protests were organised by union leaders from 
both the Socialist Bolivarian Force of Workers 
(FSBT), a union current within the mass party led 
by Chavez, the United Socialist Party of 
Venezuela (PSUV), and those aligned with 
opposition parties such as Radical Cause.

Revolutionary workers from Guayana condemned the 
unholy alliance of bureaucratic union leaders and 
opposition political forces, which aimed to 
stifling the process initiated on May 21.

This alliance was supported by Bolivar governor, 
retired General Francisco Rangel Gomez, who 
called on the national government to negotiate directly with local unions.

Opinion pieces began to appear in the local 
press, calling on the government to once again 
make Rangel president of the CVG in order to bring "stability".

The alliance between Rangel and union bureaucrats in Guayana is long running.

Officially part of the Chavista camp, Rangel has 
long been accused of being corrupt and 
anti-worker. During his term as CVG president 
before becoming governor in 2004, Rangel built up 
a corrupt clientalist network with local union and business figures.

He stacked CVG management with business partners and friends.

While on the negotiation commission to resolve 
the 15-month long dispute at Sidor, Rangel 
ordered the National Guard to fire on protesting Sidor workers.

Also on the commission was then-labour minister 
and former FSBT union leader from Guayana, Jose 
Ramon Rivero, who was similarly accused by Sidor 
workers of siding with management.

He was also criticised for using his position as 
labour minister to build the FSBT's bureaucratic 
powerbase by promoting "parallel unions" along 
factional lines and splitting the revolutionary 
union confederation, National Union of Workers (UNT).

In April last year, Chavez disbanded the Sidor 
negotiation commission and sent his vice 
president, Ramon Carrizales to resolve the 
dispute by re-nationalising the steel plant.

Rivero was then sacked. Today, he works as the 
general secretary in Rangel's governorship.

The forces behind Rivero and Rangel hoped not 
only to stifle the radical proposals from the May 
21 workshop, but also remove basic industry minister Rodolfo Sanz.

Sanz has moved to replace Rangel's people with his own in the CVG management.

In the recent dispute, Sanz accused aluminium 
workers of being responsible for the crisis in 
that sector. He worked to undermine the proposals 
of the roundtable discussions.

After several days of negotiations union leaders 
­ essentially sidelining the workers roundtables 
­ Sanz agreed on July 20 not only to pay the 
workers what they were owed, but also to 
restructure the board of directors in the aluminium sector.

Through this process, the radical proposals for 
restructuring the CVG appeared to have been push 
aside ­ which suited both Sanz and Rangel.


Revolutionary leadership

However, Chavez intervened with his July 22 
announcement, which came after a meeting with key 
ministers and advisors involved in the May 21 
socialist transformation workshop.

Chavez said his government was committed to 
implement the recommendations of the "Plan 
Socialist Guayana", placing himself clearly on the side of the workers.

He said the workers' proposals, embodied in the 
plan, would "guide all the new policies and 
concrete and specific measures that we are 
beginning to decide in order to consolidate a socialist platform in Guayana".

When a journalist directed her first question to 
Sanz regarding the plan. Chavez stepped in to 
respond, by-passing Sanz and handing the 
microphone over to Giordani, who many 
revolutionary workers identify as strongly 
committed to the process of socialist transformation.

Rangel, who had been at the May 21 workshop, was not at the July 22 meeting.

Chavez also appeared to differentiate himself 
from other sectors within the revolutionary 
movement, such as those behind the "A Grain of 
Maize" daily column, whose authors are linked to 
a political current involving oil minister Rafael Ramirez.

This current has recently been vocal in arguing 
that socialism simply entails state ownership and 
central planning from above ­ with minimum participation from workers.

For Chavez, state-owned companies "that continue 
to remain within the framework of state 
capitalism" have to be managed by their workers 
in order to become "socialist".

The Plan Socialist Guayana is Venezuela's first 
example of real "democratic planning from below", Chavez added.

The battle in Guayana is not over. Workers from 
the Alcasa aluminium plant told Green Left Weekly 
that management at aluminium plants met on July 
25 to continue the process of restructuring 
agreed to by Sanz and union leaders ­ in direct 
opposition to Chavez's statements.

Other fronts of intense class conflict have 
opened up. Various struggles have emerged 
involving different forces and interests in the 
electricity sector, as well as the still-emerging 
communes, which unite the grassroots communal councils, to name a few.

A central arena of struggle is the PSUV, which is 
in a process of restructuring ahead of its second congress in October.

But the battle in Guayana may be one of the most 
decisive as it involves the largest working-class 
population. This is in the context of a 
revolution whose weakest link has been the lack 
of a strong, organised revolutionary workers' movement.




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