Venezuela: After the Oil Union Elections the Real Battle is for Worker’s Control

At the insistence of many union leaders who are seeking explanations regarding two recent statements made by Wills Rangel, president of the United Federation of Venezuelan Oil Workers (FUTPV) and one offered by José Bodas, secretary-general of the same federation, Prensa Marea Socialista viewed it necessary to interview Stalin Perez Borges, [National coordinator of the National Union of Workers (UNT)] for his opinion on the elections in the important oil workers federation and the discussions over the collective contract. This is what he told us...

How do you assess the recent election in the oil federation?

I think this election gives us an overall snapshot of the situation in the Venezuelan labour movement. First, the important turnout that almost reached 80% of the eligible voters reflects a very important level of participation despite all the difficulties presented in carrying out the election. Second, the distribution of votes, fundamentally, presents a much more complex reality than can be read at first glance. That is, the 54% of votes obtained by Platform 7 [1] cannot put a lid on the present discontent against PDVSA's [Venezuela's state-owned oil company] management, particularly in the refineries and neither can the questioning of a lot of leaders within the platform be hidden. Ultimately, the triumph of Platform 7 is due to the support there is for President Chavez and is due to the efforts made by the PSUV [United Socialist Party of Venezuela].

I do not think all of these issues can be dismissed with the simple explanation that this election legitimizes the leadership of the federation, as the two sectors that received the most votes have said. On the contrary, to believe that the results represent the static political will of oil workers is superficial, what is beginning now is a real process of legitimizing the leadership or not. And I have a lot of doubts about that, due to the way the two main sectors that were elected to the executive committee are behaving.

Why do you say that?

Look, now comes the discussion of the collective contract, and in the debate between the internal sectors of the federation it is crucial to be clear about who should participate and decide what is being agreed to or not in the discussion. What is striking so far in the statements the president and secretary-general have given is that it seems that those who most deny the participation of the rank and file workers, of the elected delegates are members of what was Platform 1[2] which supposedly claims to stand for democracy, participation and autonomy. On the part of those that form VOS or Platform 7, which a little over a month ago originally held the view that the discussion should involve elected delegates, are now stalling on this, giving the impression that only the federation will discuss the contract. Ultimately, the two sectors end up coinciding on this because they believe that the federation is totally legitimized by the elections. I think it would be highly simplistic to believe that the leaders who were elected are the owners of the political will of the rank and file workers.

The Venezuelan labour movement, and the oil workers are no exception, is in deep crisis, it is fragmented and dispersed. An election outcome does not change that reality. The direct participation of the rank and file is more important now more than ever before, not as mere cheer squads in meetings or "informative assemblies" but as ultimate and indisputable decision makers of any agreement reached, as a true constituent power. Moreover, the debate that has occurred via the statements of the president and secretary-general of the FUTPV, both of who I have a personal appreciation for, only indicates a dispute for quotas of power and not the will for unity and participation sought by workers. That is really worrying to begin with.

Turning specifically to the topic of the collective contract, what's your opinion on this issue?

Here, too, the leaders of the former Platform 1 do not show many differences to those of Platform 7. The two sectors hold that what has to be discussed is the draft submitted in January 2008. The debate seems to be over Wills Rangel's statements on the subject of a supposed socialist wage and that what are most important are social gains, a position that is criticized by the other sector which only calls for a wage of 70 Bs F [per day], which of course is necessary but not the only thing. Left at this, it would be misguided.

The two sectors, in my view, are not discussing the substantive issue. Which, in my opinion, should be what type of company should PDVSA be from now on? Should it simply be a state company in the framework of the capitalism that prevails in our country, with the managerial structure it has today or should its workers control it? This is a great debate today in the revolutionary process. This is the case with the electrical workers, for example, who without giving up wage demands have proposed as the first clause of their collective contract workers participation in the control and management of CORPOELEC [the state-owned electricity company], or the work being done by workers in the basic industries located in Guayana, or the demands made by the workers in the denominated socialist companies.

So it seems that the socialist wage that the president-elect of the federation speaks of would be a way to adapt the wage claims to the possibilities that the top management of the company says it can grant. Meanwhile, the other sector has an economist attitude without discussing the need for the company to be at the same time controlled and managed with direct and democratic participation of workers. That is the only way to put the company at the service of the country and the revolution, if we want a socialist revolution in Venezuela. Moreover, no one is raising, as an immediate demand, an end once and for all to the aberrant wage differentiation between workers and managers.

Few or none question the privileges of management, all these unproductive expenditures that put a heavy burden on PDVSA and consolidate a bureaucratic sector that only defends its privileges. On the contrary, I read that Wills Rangel said, I think in the economics newspaper El Mundo, that they should give the federation the positions in the directorate of PDVSA, that were held in the recent past by Rafael Rosales and Nelson Nunez of the formerly existing federations.

But workers must be interested in the issue of wages?

No doubt, and also about how to maintain their purchasing power, and the issue of health and workplace safety as well as many other social and socio-economic issues, all of which should be discussed in the collective contract. But no sector of the union leadership proposes, for example, the need for a contractual clause guaranteeing the regular updating of wages, for example quarterly, according to inflation. Even the Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez Araque has acknowledged (see Correo del Orinoco, Sunday, 11/10/09) that inflation is a brutal tax that, we might add, is always paid most by the workers and the poor. Therefore, an agreement in the oil industry that is negotiated for two years, but ends up being 30 or more months, must take into account that we are talking about an average inflation of 30% or more annually, if we talk about basic products for the working family. Inflation during the year that the contract was extended for and in the first year that it came into effect was far higher than this rate.

In your opinion, what do the two positions represent?

They express more general political positions. One is that of the president of the federation, which is more sensitive to pressure from the technocracy and the wishes of the president of PDVSA, [Rafael] Ramirez. It is functional to the needs of the technocracy. And the other is that of the current expressed by Bodas, secretary-general-elect, who view the government of the revolutionary process as a normal bourgeois and anti-worker government. Which is why, in reality, although they say otherwise, they are allied to the old national bureaucracy of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), masked in what is now called the Labour Solidarity Movement. They locate themselves from a simply economist point of view, without opting to develop a process of political mobilization that can conquer workers control in the country's main industry. These are the models that have already failed and that led to the present dispersion of the Venezuelan labour movement; they are two models that have passed their use-by date.

In my point of view, after the discussion of the collective contract or in the middle of this discussion, the time for a true oil workers constituent assembly has arrived, so that the workers and the people can democratically decide what should be done and how PDVSA should be run.

Translator's Notes:

[1] Platform 7 or the Socialist Workers Vanguard (Vanguardia Obrera Socialista - VOS): a pro-Chavez union platform that won 54% of the vote in the October 1 elections for the United Federation of Venezuelan Oil Workers (FUTPV).

[2] Platform 1: headed by Jose Bodas from the United Revolutionary Autonomous Class Current (C-CURA). C-CURA, which employs a militant far-left discourse, has formed a national union coalition called "Labor Solidarity" with far-right sectors aligned with the largely discredited Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), which supported the coup against the elected president Hugo Chavez in 2002.

Translated by Kiraz Janicke for Venezuelanalysis.com