[Marxism] Lat Am largest steel plant on strike in Venezuela; workers urge nationalization

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Venezuelan Workers Struggle against Neo-Liberalism in Latin America?s
Largest Steel Plant

Friday, May 07, 2004  Print format 
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By: Jonah Gindin ? Venezuelanalysis.com

 
Sidor workers rally at Portón 3
Credit: Jonah Gindin - Venezuelanalysis.com 

The conflict at Siderúrgica del Orinoco (Sidor)?Latin America?s largest
steel company, affecting 4,500 direct employees and 7,000 contract
workers?has entered its third week.  As the strike has developed, it has
come to represent the current contradictions within the government?s
relationship with labor.  As the workers call for nationalization, the
Ministry of Labor has yet to take concrete measures to meet their
demands.  Whatever happens at Sidor, the strike will have widespread
implications for the Venezuelan labor movement as a whole and, in
particular, with respect to the union?s relationship with the government
of President Hugo Chávez Frías.

Ramón Machuca, the president of Sutiss, the steelworkers union, is
running for Governor of the state of Bolívar on a chavista platform,
even though he is not the official candidate of the 5th Republic
Movement (Chavez? party, MVR).  His main rival appears to be Francisco
Rangel Gómez, the former director of the CVG (Corporación Venezolano de
Guyana?the state corporation that owns a 40.3% stake in Sidor).  Thus,
perhaps it is not surprising that allegations that this strike is
politically motivated are circulating in both the Chavista and
opposition camps.  Yet it would appear that these allegations themselves
are politically motivated.

Víctor Moreno, the president of Fetrabolívar, which is the union
federation of Bolivar state, recently suggested to the Venezuelan
newspaper El Universal that the problem at Sidor is due to a conflict
between Machuca and Chávez. He offered two explanations for the
conflict: first, the stock-options that Sutiss workers are seeking
should come from the government and not from the Amazonia Consortium,
which owns 59.7% of the company. However, this claim directly
contradicts statements made by Sutiss members, who say the share should
come from the consortium.  Second, according to Moreno, Machuca has
broken with Chávez because he was not appointed the official MVR
candidate. However, a more likely explanation is that Machuca resents
not being choosen by the unions that initially conformed the UNT to be
its president. What is certain is that Moreno and Machuca are long-time
rivals, and it is worth noting that in the past Fetrabolívar has joined
with the CTV in actively opposing the Matancero union reform movement,
who represent 70% of the Sutiss leadership including President Machuca
and Secretary General José Rodriguez Acarigua.

 
Sutiss President Ramón Machuca addresses a rally at Porton 3
Credit: Jonah Gindin - Venezuelanalysis.com 

Whether or not political considerations were involved, the strike has
moved far beyond these.  Machuca, Acarigua, and the rank and file all
maintain that bonuses owed workers must come from the Amazonia
Consortium, and not the CVG.  But, the issue of bonuses has taken a
backseat to safety concerns, and the trans-national?s political campaign
against the union.

The Amazonia Consortium consists of the Argentine group Techint, which
holds a 60.5 percent stake through its Tamsa unit in Mexico, and Siderar
in Argentina, who have born the brunt of the workers? animosity; Mexican
steelmaker Hylsamex, 19.5 percent; Brazil's Usiminas, 16.6 percent; and
Venezuelan steelmaker Sivensa, 3.4 percent. 

Precursors to the Strike

Nuevo Sindicalismo and the Matanceros

During the 1970s, 80s and 90s the Nuevo Sindicalismo movement (new
unionism) gained rapid and near-total influence in the state of Bolívar.
The nuevo sindicalismo was represented at the party level by the
newly-formed La Causa R, with a labor-leader at its head: Andres
Velasquez, a former steelworker.  Nuevo sindicalismo and La Causa R had
their roots in Sutiss as part of the broader Matancero movement, which
laid the foundation for the current politicization of Sutiss workers.
Nuevo sindicalismo and La Causa R brought participatory democracy to
Bolívar long before the MVR even existed, and until the 1990s conceived
of itself ?as neither bargaining agent nor political broker but a
representative accountable between elections to workers who were
expected to act in solidarity with one another.?[1]

However, by the 1990s La Causa R had assumed a role more or in keeping
with other established parties, and nuevo sindicalismo was coopted,
eventually cooperating with the CTV?its former nemesis.  The Matancero
movement managed to avoid this fate, due to its deep-seated suspicion of
political parties.  Today the Matancero movement remains a powerful
force in Sutiss and remains unaffiliated with any political parties,
though the movement supports el proceso (?the process,? as the
Bolívarian revolution is commonly known).

2001 Strike

In May 2001 Sutiss went on strike for 21 days.  The CTV quickly declared
their solidarity and began considering a general strike in support of
the Sidor workers.  However, it soon became evident that, while
Machuca?s concerns were generally ?bread-and-butter? issues, CTV heads
Carlos Ortega and Alfredo Ramos had a political agenda.  The CTV sought
to use the excuse of supporting Sutiss to call a general strike which
they could turn into a political tool to attack Chávez.  Thus, recent
declarations of support for the present Sutiss from CTV
Executive-Secretary Pablo Castro must be viewed in this context.[2]

2002-2003 Oil-Strike

Sidor participated in the 2002-2003 oil industry shutdown, shutting down
production completely even though it cost them dearly.  Particularly in
light of the serious financial straights in which the company has found
itself since privatization, their decision to participate signaled
dedicated opposition to Chávez.  In support of the government, Sutiss
workers reacted to the shutdown by occupying gas stations all over the
state, and by creating a gas-caravan of private cars from Anzoátegui to
keep gas flowing in Bolívar.

The Current Impasse            

Contradicting the claims of Sidor, which has begun a media-campaign
characterizing the strike as a greedy attempt by well-fed steelworkers
to increase wages, Sutiss has identified several key issues as
justification for the strike, including: access to health services,
health & safety, contract workers, transportation, the presence of the
National Guard at Sidor, and bonuses.  But one larger problem has come
to represent all of the others: Neoliberal management policies that have
caused Sutiss to begin calling for re-nationalization.

Health services

As outlined in the collective bargaining agreement between Sutiss and
Sidor, the company is responsible for providing health care for the
workers. However, according to Sutiss Secretary-General José Rodriguez
Acarigua, ?the medical situation here is a disaster? Right now there is
a big problem with the health system for the workers?we have two workers
who died because they were denied access to the health system?and they
died in the streets, in a public hospital??[3]

Health & Safety

As a direct result of the now-familiar management technique of shifting
the work-load from well-paid and well-trained unionized workers to
contract-workers to cut costs, the number of accidents at Sidor have
steadily increased.  The company is now operating with far fewer workers
(around 13,000 as opposed to 24,000 in 1997) and production has been
increased 39% since 1997. Contract workers are subjected to the
riskiest, most exposed conditions in the factory, are not being provided
with adequate health and safety training or with adequate safety
equipment.  Furthermore, contract workers are often unfamiliar with the
risks because they are not given time to acclimate to the conditions in
specific areas.  They are posted in one location for a short period of
time, then they are moved to another area of work, or they are ?let go?.
The result is that there have been 9 deaths since privatization, 5 in
the last 12 months; and all of those last 5 deaths were contract
workers.

Sutiss Secretary General José Rodriguez Acarigua, said, ??9 workers have
died at work since privatization in 1997. We have suggested
improvements, investments in safety and nothing happened. This is a
plant that is about production, production, and more production and at
the end of the day there is no interest in safety whatsoever??[4]

Another issue of concern is the increasing incidence of work-related
illnesses and the company?s failure to provide regular medical exams as
required in Article 70, on ?Preventative Medical Services,? of the
collective bargaining agreement.  Also there has any adequate
information regarding work-related illnesses been collected, as is the
employer?s responsibility according to Article 71, ?Work-Related
Illnesses.?[5]  

 
Unidentified worker holding casing from National Guard rubber bullet as
Sutiss Secretary General José Rodriguez Acarigua addresses striking
workers at Portón 1
Credit: Jonah Gindin - Venezuelanalysis.com 

According to Victor Jiménez of Sutiss? Industrial Health & Safety
Committee,

??there are abnormally high incidences of professionally-related health
problems as a result of working in conditions of extreme heat, exposure
to radiation, and to dangerous chemicals? records of these illnesses
don?t exist! No one is sick at Sidor! ...workers are not?getting health
reports as is their right according to article 51 of the Medical
Practice Law, that all workers?have the right to solicit the information
and diagnoses of the real medical condition of this patient?..At the
level of accidents where workers are disabled, where they lose a finger,
or an arm, or break their foot, or are partially-paralyzed there is not
a single type of statistical report on these accidents. [Based on the
statistics] This is an ideal company![6]

Contratistas

Contract workers, who represented only about 45% of the workforce prior
to privatization and 0% in 1979, now represent well over 60% of the
workforce.  Since the 1980s, and since privatization in particular,
unionized workers have been explicitly targeted for firings and replaced
by contract workers.  These workers are paid minimum wage, which is less
than a third of the wage of direct employees, with no benefits (though
the collective bargaining agreement explicitly states that they are
guaranteed a whole series of benefits[7]).  Their terms of employment
are temporary and because the company can dismiss them without notice
(or justification) contract workers are the most vulnerable workers at
Sidor.  Thus, they are forced to accept the riskiest jobs, and to work
in the worst conditions.[8]

According to assembly-line technician Ramon Arramello, ??there are young
exploited workers here making Bs 200, 000 (US$100) monthly?Some of the
most poorly paid workers here in Venezuela are steelworkers, because
Sidor ignores all of their demands, the collective-agreement, their
[health-care]??[9]

Transport

According to Article 12 ?Vacation Time and Transport,? of the
Collective-Agreement, Sidor is obligated to provide free transportation
to and from the plant to workers.  If the company does not provide free
transportation, they must reimburse workers who pay for their own
transportation.[10]  But, according to Sutiss, Sidor has failed to
provide said transport, nor have they compensated workers for their
transportation costs for the last 2 years.  The transport issue is
particularly important given the history of cooperation between
steel-workers at Sidor and the transport workers.  In 1976 the then
young matancero movement organized the drivers of the buses the company
contracted to transport workers.  It was a breakthrough for the
expansion of Matancero into the communities around Sidor, and
facilitated massive participation in strikes and work-stoppages at
Sidor.  The current strike is considerably weakened by difficulties in
bringing workers from distant neighborhoods to the plant.[11]

National Guard

The National Guard has been called in to Sidor, allegedly to protect the
installation from worker-saboteurs. However, their role has also clearly
been one of intimidation.  At 9am on April 29th the National Guard
opened fire on striking workers with rubber bullets and tear-gas (the
company that makes the rubber bullets used is GlobalShot.com?see photo).
According to Acarigua ?Gen. Nieves of CORE 8 has converted the National
Guard into strike breakers that are favoring the company and this cannot
be.  This is not their function.  They can?t be partial to a
transnational [over the workers at Sidor].?[12]

Bonuses

According to Sutiss, the bonuses must come from the transnational, and
not from the government.  Article 8 of the collective bargaining
agreement, on profit sharing, states that the company is required to
distribute 15% of its annual profits to the workers (only the direct
employees, since contract-workers are not covered).[13] The Amazonia
Consortium (AC), which owns the privatized portion of Sidor, claims that
it has already redistributed these profits, but Sutiss maintains that
they have yet to receive them.  Yet spokespersons for AC have also said
that the union?s disagreement regarding receiving these profits is with
CVG, which would appear to contradict their claims that the union has
already received these profits. Sutiss members at every level from
Machuca to the rank & file have asserted and reasserted that the 20% of
profits that they are owed must come from the transnational and not from
the government.

José Rodriguez Acarigua: ?We are also owed profits from the last 6
years?last year, in 2003 we quadrupled production, quadrupled, so there
is no shortage of money?the company made 90 million dollars (US) in
profits last year and we haven?t received a cent, not a cent (?)?[14]

Re-Nationalization

Both the Sutiss leadership and the rank and file constantly refer to the
Amazonia Consortium as the root of the problem: it is a problem with
neoliberalism. As Sutiss President Ramón Machuca notes, 

?The problem is with a method of neoliberal management that is being
applied all over the world and systematically violating the worker?s
rights?Mediation [by the government] is the only way I can see to
resolve this conflict?Here there are two conflicting ideologies: the
first is the ideology of globalization, of Neoliberal politics
represented by the foreign management; the second is the social ideology
of the union and of the workers, who are struggling every day for our
rights?We are proposing re-nationalization because we believe it is a
necessary measure and one that should be discussed nationally??[15]

Yet Sidor began the transition to Neoliberal management while still
state-run, and many of the problems that exist today can be traced to
long before 1997.  The experience of the state oil company PDVSA prior
to its restructuring in 2003 provides a clue to how SIDOR must have been
managed during the 1980s and 1990s.  However, between 1961 (when the
company was started) and 1998 (privatization) there was one strike,
around 20 work-stoppages, compared to 2 strikes (one in 2001, and 2004),
and 320 work-stoppages in the last 6 years.

Implications

The CTV and the UNT at Sidor

Both the anti-Chavez union federation CTV and the pro-Chavez union
federation UNT have recently voiced their support for the struggle of
the Sutiss workers against Sidor.  The support of the UNT can likely be
taken at face-value since they are also supporting workers in Carabobo,
Miranda, and Caracas who have taken-over factories that participated in
the oil industry shutdown in 2002-2003. Orlando Chirino, one of seven
UNT provisional coordinators, has personally voiced his support for
Sutiss, noting that ??this strike is decisive for workers and we support
the workers at Sidor in a spirit of solidarity in this context.?[16]

The CTV?s support on the other hand must necessarily be viewed with
extreme suspicion. As with the 2001 Sutiss strike, they will likely seek
to turn this to their advantage. As long as the Ministry of Labor has
not taken a position firmly supporting Sutiss, the CTV and the
opposition more generally will have an opportunity to turn this into a
conflict between Machuca and Chávez, as Víctor Moreno from Fetrabolívar
has already begun to do (see above).

The Role of the Ministry of Labor

Because of the importance of Sutiss in the Venezuelan labor movement,
and of Sidor in the Latin American steel market, whatever happens here
will have widespread implications.  The Sutiss workers have genuine
grievances with Sidor and perhaps a legal premise for the strike.  It is
also likely that their demands will not be met by the Amazonia
Consortium, but can only be achieved through nationalization. It is
extremely important that the government take a position as quickly as
possible, and to do so will mean grappling with this issue.  On May 6
the Associated Press reported that the Ministry of Labor promised to
give SUTISS a 30% share of the company?30% that would come from the
CVG?s share of 40.3%.  This is exactly what Sutiss does not need, and it
does not reflect their demands.  They have been repeatedly asserting
that the 20% share they are requesting must come from the transnational,
not from the government. With this offer, the government is allowing
Sidor to walk away from the strike relatively unscathed (though having
lost around US$35 million due to the strike itself).  Furthermore, by
dealing exclusively with the issue of profit-sharing they leave health &
safety concerns, transport, and problems regarding contract workers
unsolved. It is doubtful that Sutiss will accept such a superficial
?solution? to the problems at Sidor, and even if they do, these issues
will resurface and there will be another strike in a few months, or a
year.

A far more productive step for the Ministry of Labor would be to support
nationalization.  Clearly this is a radical approach and its actual
application would, admittedly, be a departure from previous economic
policy.  However, this is a revolution (right?).  Maybe it?s time that
el proceso takes this step.  However, given the predictable reactions of
the US government, and probably also of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico
(due to inevitable pressure from the Amazonia Consortium), this would be
a risky decision.  However, it is one that is going to have to be made
sooner or later, or else the government will undoubtedly loose the
support of even the UNT.  Thus, it is worth planning for, even if it is
not really on the agenda yet.

Mediation

But what position can the government take short of supporting
nationalization? This is the most important consideration in the
short-term, since it is imperative that the government take a position
clearly in support of the workers at Sidor, yet nationalization is
probably not in the cards.  If they do not, they risk causing Sutiss to
break permanently with el proceso.  As mentioned earlier, Sutiss will be
a key ally for both the government and the UNT as labor policy and the
new federation progress.  Thus, losing the support of Sutiss should not
be considered an option.

Still, it should be possible for the government to take a position
supporting the workers at Sidor without supporting nationalization in
the short term.  Paying rhetorical homage to nationalization would not
be abnormal, particularly since there are serious and well documented
grievances that justify the Sutiss position.  Such a statement would
increase the likelihood of Sidor accepting less drastic concessions.
Machuca has stated in a personal interview that the role he seeks the
government to play at this point is one of ?mediation?. Were the
government to publicly declare that they are extremely concerned with
the working conditions at Sidor and thus the Ministry of Labor was
sending a delegation to observe conditions and make recommendations to
both Sidor and Sutiss, it would be met with strong support among
Venezuelan workers generally, and would not be overly threatening to
Sidor. The nationalization option could be postponed, and perhaps if
Sidor?s financial does not improve, the CVG will have the option to
increase its ownership through another debt-restructuring as they did in
2003, resulting in CVG?s ownership increasing from 30%-40%.



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--------

[1] Daniel Hellinger, ?The Causa R and the Nuevo Sindicalismo in
Venezuela,? Latin American Perspectives, Vol.23, No.3, Postbonanza
Venezuela (Summer, 1996), p.120.

[2] Steve Ellner, ?Tendencias Recientes en el Movimiento Laboral
Venezolano: Autonmía vs Control Político,? Revista Venezolana de
Economia y Ciencias Sociales, ¿Para dónde va Venezuela?, (Sept.-Dic.,
2003), p.167.

[3] Personal interview at Sidor, 29-04-04.

[4] José Rodriguez Acarigua, personal interview at Sidor, 29-04-04.

[5] Convención Colectiva de Trabajo 2002-2004, SIDOR, SUTISS, pp.136-8.

[6] Personal interview at Sidor, 30-04-04.

[7] ?Cláusula No 97: Contratistas,? Convención Colectiva de Trabajo
2002-2004, SIDOR, SUTISS, pp.178-81.

[8] Wilfred Rondón, Coordinator of Contract-Workers Committee, personal
interview at Sidor, 30-04-04.

[9] Personal interview at Sidor, 30-04-04.

[10] Convención Colectiva de Trabajo 2002-2004, SIDOR, SUTISS, pp.34-6.

[11] Hellinger, 120.

[12] Barreiro C., ?Sidor reinicia??

[13] Colectiva de Trabajo 2002-2004, SIDOR, SUTISS, pp.28-30.

[14] Personal interview at Sidor, 29-04-04.

[15] President of SUTISS, personal interview at Sidor, 30-04-04.

[16] Orlando Chirino, Coordinator UNT, personal interview, 27-04-04.
 
  
 
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2003 VenezuelAnalysis.com
Ongoing News, Views and Analysis from Venezuela
 







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