the real fracture in venezuela's labor movement is ideological:
Should there be a leadership election now or should that wait until after the Presidential election in order to devote all energy to that? While that is an accurate portrayal of the dispute at the II Congress there was much more to it than that. Under the surface a more dangerous quarrel is simmering away that could have consequences for the government and its revolutionary credentials. What is up for grabs is the meaning of XXI century Socialism and the UNT’s role within it.
(...) But regarding the co-operative factories in particular, there are disagreements within the MVR (the governing party), the state bureaucracy, and within the UNT. There is a divergence of views over the form they should take, the extent of workers control and how predominant they should be across different sectors of the economy. This was all at play at the Congress.
(...) It is divided into five currents: The Class Unity Revolutionary and Autonomous Current (C-CURA) led by Orlando Chirino, the Bolivarian Workers Force (FBT), led by Osvaldo Vera, the Autonomous Union, the faction of Franklin Rondón, and the collective led by Marcela Máspero.
(...) And like most organizations it is a broad ideological church, spanning social democracy at the right of the political spectrum to Marxism-Leninism on the left. It was, as Orlando Chirino puts it, “forged during the heat of struggle”: the leaders of different unions agreed a national coordinating committee, hence the entire organization was formed from the top down with little discussion or debate at the grassroots level. While this may have been understandable at the time, three years on the UNT still lacks direction, purpose and legitimacy. The II Congress was supposed to put an end to these deficiencies.
(...) But the congress was a disaster if not a total farce. The entire first day of a three day conference was taken up with accreditation and a lot of the accommodation for those traveling from outside Caracas was actually located outside of Caracas, nowhere near the Congress. All of this already had delegates’ tempers raised, so when the key issue of elections came to be debated, violence broke out and all but C-CURA left the hall to reconvene in another location and the Congress was split in two.
(...) Without taking sides on the issue, it is important to note that C-CURA is the only current that wants the elections this year but it is actually bigger than the other four combined. They could have been expected to win the vote in the Congress for elections if it hadn’t been disrupted.
(...) The Congress mainly highlighted and accentuated the divisions and served as a stage where the ‘disorganized’ working-class was on show, to the inevitable delight of those opposed to its active involvement in the revolutionary process.
(...) One thing all five currents do agree on is that they want Hugo Chávez to win the December presidential elections and they support the campaign for 10 million votes. But even there tensions arise. For the four minority currents the support for the government must be uncritical, while Chirino’s current wants an autonomous confederation that is first and foremost a worker’s movement. If the government acts against the interests of workers, they want the right to criticize it.
(...) Chirino is a Marxist. For him and his current Chávez has played a key role in encouraging and radicalizing workers through his rhetoric and his support for factory occupations and co-management, and basically for bringing the word socialism into the public discourse. But for C-CURA co-management is just a transitional phase towards complete workers control of industry, taking Venezuela towards XXI Century Socialism. It is a period of “apprenticeship,” where workers learn new skills and grow in confidence. They have criticized the fact that the government has allowed workers to profit from co-managed factories such as INVEVAL. They think society as a whole should profit and argue that government policy is turning workers into capitalists. They also want workers to control the oil industry, which the state has emphatically refused to consider, designating it a “strategic” industry. For this reason Chirino and his associates are forming their own revolutionary party outside of the MVR.
(...) Conversely, the other four currents are all closely linked to the government and the state. Marsela Máspero is close to the Ministry of Work, while Osvaldo Vera of the FBT is actually a deputy in the National Assembly for the ruling MVR. The Autonomous Union is linked to Patria Para Todos (PPT), which is in coalition with the MVR. And they have supported the right of workers to “own” their co-operatives. They have opposed Chirino’s plan to form a new party. While they insist that their motivation is no more than to avoid dividing the pro-Chávez coalition, could their opposition to elections that they might lose have something to do with a loss of control of the UNT by MVR, especially given the C-CURA’s radical tendencies?
(...) Actually, although the state likes to show off INVEPAL and INVEVAL (companies where the state owns 51% and the workers 49% and are jointly managed), most of the co-managed factories are actually businesses that have run into financial difficulty and the state provides funds to the companies under the guarantee that the workers are kept on and that they are given a limited role in management. It is difficult to attach the label socialism to these enterprises.
(...) The UNT seems to be failing the Bolivarian Revolution and the workers. The right and left of the organization both bear responsibility for this.
(...) It is important, too, that it remains autonomous from the government. For an autonomous internationalist union confederation a class-based identity should be developed. One need only look at the AFL-CIO in the US to see what nationally focused, top-down trade unions can lead to: a coalition with the state and business against workers from other countries. That doesn’t always mean opposing the government, but keeping a safe distance so as to remain independent. Union leaders such as Osvaldo Vera, who are also members of the government, will find this difficult.