Socialism vs. workers

Down with socialism, up with Chávez

More bad news for the government: union bosses are sick of business as usual.

This story by Ana Díaz quotes several left-wing union heads dissing the government.

The money quote:

Most of the (state-owned) companies under worker control have not been able to increase production. (Trotskyite union boss) Chirino said cement companies, which were taken over by the state in 2008, are operating at half capacity. The board, he added, has responded to workers’ demands for collective bargaining and investment in plant technology with repression and more than 200 threats of firing. He assured the situation in cement companies is the same in other nationalized companies such as Agropatria, Owens, sugar mills, Rialca, Invepal, among others.

The success story of food processing company La Gaviota, in Sucre state, is about to become sour. The board has three members named by the government, and three others named by workers and by neighboring communities. It began having difficulties because state-owned enterprises do not send supplies and packaging material, and this has been compounded by wrong decisions taken in Caracas that have not been consulted with other board members.

At the peak of the electricity crisis in 2010, Chávez named the workers’ delegates to the board of the National Electricity Company, so they could apply worker control. Ángel Navas, president of the Electrical Workers Federation, pointed out that the board members were fired under Argénis Chávez’s tenure in Corpoelec. “Minister Jesse Chacón seems to have no interest in letting workers participate in coming up with the solution to the structural problems in electricity supply,” he added.