Workplace bullying as public policy

/ April 23, 2013
Tascón vive! La lista sigue!

The Tascón List lives on.

In the last few days, mutiple press reports indicate that some public sector workers have been fired and others have suffered harassment because of their political stance after the presidential election.

Audio clips of several heads of public bodies (like the Zulia Sports Director or the Director of Bolipuertos in Puerto Cabello) have been leaked threatening any opposition supporters working there that with losing their jobs.

But the biggest leak so far was a video of Housing Minister Ricardo Molina in a meeting with some employees, where he promises that any worker who he finds out to be an opposition supporter (he refers to Leopoldo Lopez’s political party Voluntad Popular) that “…he’ll fire him, if he doesn’t quit first”. He also show disregard for any possible protections in the current labor legislation in these kind of cases.

It cannot be repeated too often: this kind of behaviour is very explicitly banned by article 145 of Venezuela’s constitution.

Hours after the video went public online, he was ratified in his post by Nicolás Maduro.

In Guayana’s state companies, some Chavista workers’ leaders have asked for the return of the infamous “Tascón List”. But some of their colleagues have rejected such request.

The political pressure has also reached places like the Miranda State Legislature (now controlled by Chavismo by one vote) or the criminal investigations police CICPC. It has reached the social networks as well, where a Facebook page was opened in Tachira to expose hidden opposition supporters inside the public sector.

But other members of Chavismo wants to take this further: Odalis Monzón, PSUV deputy for Vargas State wrote on her Twitter account that she was “putting the magnifying glass on possible mission beneficiaries involved in last week’s cacerolazos“. In her defense, she stated that “there are many traitors inside Chavismo”. She even founded some sort of “Popular Front” to fight the opposition and “…start a process of (internal) cleansing.”

Charming.

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32 thoughts on “Workplace bullying as public policy”

  3. I do hope they step up this kind of thing and that Toripollo goes on record supporting it. Really. I know it’s painful for those in the crosshairs; but now it seems it cannot happen in any other way.

    It’s obvious that chavismo is not able to change for the better.

    The sooner they get the Venezuelans who (might) have voted for them to hate their guts, the sooner we will get rid of this fascist gang.

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  5. Maduro should lose his job also.
    Why does he praise the Chavez constitution and then frickin ignore it?
    Chavistas are not above the law but they act otherwise.

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  6. This is the kind of dehumanizing rhetoric that ultimately leads to organized mob violence or condoned state violence against against those who are targeted.

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  9. I can’t stress enough how important it is to tell English readers Venezuela is experiencing reverse McCarthyism, that is, the making of lists of citizens, especially public workers, who do not fully support the Venezuelan government’s policy because of its communist tendencies.

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  10. It is curious that GAC, Arturo, yoyo et al won’t come anywhere near this despicable stuff.

    Even trolls have a limit apparently.

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    • They’re too busy checking their facebook/twitter/textmessages to make sure they’re not caught in the web

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      • You sound as if you’re joking but they wouldn’t be caught dead denouncing this sort of thing. So even if ethically they despised it they would have to keep their trap shut.

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    • Their silence in the face of this post speaks volumes. Fascists such as GAC, Arturo and yoyo LOVE this kind of behaviour, but they won’t openly applaud it. It’s enough that it is happening, there’s no need to draw any more attention to it. That’s a central part of how fascism works.

      In the same sense, the Nazis did not trumpet the Holocaust, it was quiet and most Germans had only a limited awareness of it.

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  11. The facebook one bothers me as it is not a Venezuela hosted site where hate laws are irrelevant. Encourage people to send Facebook a complaint that this is a hate site. No one should have to put up with this crap especially when its relatively easy to have it taken down.

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  13. The List has never been gone. Last time I had to get my passport (August 2008) they look me up in the “lista”. I had to look up, In The Saime Downtown ( or Onidex, I don’t know what name was they keep changing them) for Datos filiatorios. And Before That I had to go with my birth certificate, old passport and old cedula, to put them in their face that they were looking in the Tascon List. How do I know because they change my month of birth. Every time they said you have a problem with your documents, immediately I said what that they said my birth month is August, instead of April? And immediately show my old things and my BIRTH certificate and telling them ok ? you know there is no automatization….The poor guy was”I’m sorry, I don’t like Chavez either, but I have family…” I “stopped and told him “Look , If you like him vote for him, you have the right. However, is my right to vote for whatever I want, and really who I have to talk so they could put april again, They already know I won’t be with Chavez, i don’t want a job with the government. So at least please fix the problem in the Tascon list.”

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    • Rory Carroll, in his new box, has a chapter where he was talking to someone who’s job it was to cross reference the list. She felt ashamed of herself, that she went form an enthusiastic believer in the revolution and it ended with her keeping benefits and jobs from people who just expressed their constitutional rights.

      Contrary to what Chavez said, the list never went away

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  14. I have to admit that I am a full-blooded bourgeoisie watching the systematic destruction of Venezuela and wondering how I can do something to help… but what can I do while I’m being identified as the enemy? I might be able to invest some capital to produce something needed by the public that the public is eager to pay for. Then what? It’s a total paradox! My government might take the business away from me, or the employees may drive me out of business. Maybe, I’ll get kidnapped or murdered. Yet, I am in great pain for the people who are suffering, and I know it doesn’t need to be this way. But the worse thing of all is that even if the revolution fails, and things turn around, I have no confidence that this whole cycle could start all over again with the next Hugo Chavez.

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  15. This brings back memories… The year was 93 or 94, I was still a kid, but I can remember my neighbor being furious about not being able to get a job as an ophthalmologist in Táchira because he didn’t have his Acción Democrática member ID. History repeating itself again, maybe even worse. So much for ‘Venezuela ahora es de todos’, the mask fell.

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    • Thank you, Fernando, for that. Where was your uncle applying for the job of ophthalmologist? At an AD-funded clinic? (Not that that should be a barrier for anyone’s political affiliation.)

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      • Nope, I talked to my former neighbor yesterday and he recalled, it was some sort of Lotería del Táchira funded clinic, from what he told me, the Lotery was controlled by the governorship of Táchira, so it was probably a case of sectarismo adeco.

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