Chávez wants to "re-define" the PSUV

[L.J.Solidarity]

According to venezuelanalysis.com (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4420) Hugo Chávez recently announced his intention to combat "sectarianism" and "bureaucracy" within the PSUV and to strengthen the party's ties to the worker's movement.
While the latter sounds very positive to me, I wonder what he means by: "It is positive that there are internal currents, but they must have a political basis, not a personal one". Does he only refer to some allegedly corrupt/illoyal governors and high-ranking officials who have their own power base? And do you think there's going to be some kind of purge in the PSUV?

[ComradeR]

Well maybe this will show Chávez's true colors showing just where he is going to take things.

[STJ]

It will be nice to see where Chavez takes this.

[teenagebricks]

Good news. I think Hugo Chávez has always been supportive of the working class, but the right in Venezuela, and also the United States, have stood in the way of him every time he tries to make any sort of progress. Hopefully he has found some way of overcoming these obstacles.

[ckaihatsu]

Re: [LABOR-L] Fw: Venezuela: Why CCURA did not march on May 1

grok <[email protected]> Wed, May 6, 2009 at 11:49 PM
Reply-To: [email protected]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


Well, one thing is to be said for sure, here: Orlando Chirino & CCURA are
following the basic correct revolutionary socialist strategy of "march
separately -- but strike together!" And no real socialist revolutionary
can fault them for that. It's quite likely that this is the only correct
path to follow: venezuelan workers faced as they are, with what amounts
to social-democrat-style treachery from within the ranks of the
"bolivarian socialist" leadership (as well as from those who follow them
blindly).


- -- grok.





As the smoke cleared, EL NUEVO TOPO <[email protected]>
mounted the barricade and roared out:

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> See bottom of Posting for LABOR-L Archive and Subscription Information
>
> -----Forwarded Message-----
> >From: EL NUEVO TOPO <[email protected]
> >Subject: Fw: Venezuela: Why CCURA did not march on May 1
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Forwarded Message-----
> >>From: EL NUEVO TOPO <[email protected]>
> >>Sent: May 5, 2009 11:18 PM
> >
> >>Subject: Venezuela: Why CCURA did not march on May 1
> >>
> >>We are pushing for independent mobilizations. Orlando Chirino explains the reasons why CCURA current did not participate in the march on May 1 in Caracas
> >>
> >>May 1- In a television program on April 30th in Valencia, Orlando Chirino, Coordinator of the National Union of Workers (U.N.T.) and the leader of the Corriente Clasista, Unitaria, Revolucionaria y Autonoma
> >>(CCURA) expressed the reasons why why the labor sector he leads did not participate in the mobilizations called by the National Government in Caracas, nor would they participate in those called by the CTV and the parties of the political opposition.
> >>
> >>He said: "the best way we can render homage to the martyrs of Chicago 123 years after their execution is to mobilize to defend the fundamental rights of workers that today are in danger. In question are collective agreemnts, labor stability, wages and the right to strike and protest which are guaranteed in the Constitution of the Bolivivarian Republic of Venezuela."
> >>
> >>Because of the importance of what is in question, besides being a poliical problem, it is an ethical and moral one which mobilization to particpate in tomorrow. Our current will not participate in the mobilization called by the National Government in Caracus precisely because it is the government, its ministers, its functionaries, its political party, its governors and its mayors who are carrying out a brutal offensive against workers to get them to renounce the rights that belong to them as a social class which was conquered in the course of many years and hard battles."
> >>
> >>We have been denouncing for some time that the government is moving against labor rights. The proof of it is that employees of public administration, health workers, educaton, electric indsutry, petroleum workers, the Mercal network, among others continue without having a collective bargaining agreement.
> >>Various entities have been eliminated and their workers thrown out. There are now more than three thousand orders to reinstate workers which have not been obeyed and 80% are a result of unjustified firings in State institutions or enterprises."
> >>
> >>The workers who work in the Metro of Caracus have just suffered a blow in that their contract has benn
> >>decertified...and the gas workers are facing the same tragedy. There is a growing criminalization of protest . More than 80 union leaders and rank and filers are awaiting judicial process for protests they have made in defense of their rights. Faced with this crude reality, it would be mistaken to mobilize on the side of the government, its ministers and functionaries this May Day, which is the Day of the Workers."
> >>
> >>....Neither will we participate in the call made by the leaders of the CTV and the parties of the oligarchy now in political opposition. They want to fish for trouble ("rio revuelto") taking advantage of the discontent that exists among workers with government policies. They were never interested in the problems of workers and now they want to use workers' demands as a political trampoline to stop the revolution, demoralize workers and put them in the service of those who carried out the coup in
> >>April 2002 and the work stoppage sabotage. We will never forget that they are responsable for the labor reform that eliminated valuable conquests of workers. Besides they are agents of governments that are enemies of our people.
> >>
> >>....The CCURA is calling indepenent activities which in various points of the country together withthe Movement of Labor Solidarity.....
> >Our aspiration is that the next May Day we will march totally independent of the goverment, of the bureaucracy, of the traditional bourgeosie, of the boli-bourgeosie, of the mult-nationals and of imperialism."
> >
> >"Finally he called "on companeros within the PSUV who are critical and call themselves revolutionaries
> >>that they need to be clear. They cannot say they are in favor of contracts, in favor of wage increases, and who oppose the government giving money to the exploiters and mult-nationals while at the same time the autonomy of the unions being stomped on and what is worse confusing the workers to get them to participate in the governments mobilizations side by side with those who carry out anti-labor policies and are against the deepening of the Revolution.
> >(translated by Earl Gilman)
> >
> >
>
> ************************************************** **
> Access LABOR-L archives and manage your subscription
> at https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/labor-l.html





- --
Build the North America-wide General Strike.

TODO el poder a los consejos y las comunas.
TOUT le pouvoir aux conseils et communes.
ALL power to the councils and communes.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkoCaHIACgkQXo3EtEYbt3EO4ACg01QCnS6KmC vFw4EJKhR3VZvN
N1IAoKCrqhS3J8IfUl6x0UPuLVJQWvf3
=RSNE
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[ckaihatsu]

[labor_action] VENEZUELA--Union leader at Toyota murdered by hired killers

Yosef M <[email protected]> Wed, May 6, 2009 at 9:42 PM
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]


[What follows is an unofficial translation. Comrades should check the URL below for the official translation, when it becomes available. --YM]

Declaration of the Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo (LTS) of Venezuela
By LTS of Venezuela
Wednesday, May 5, 2009
From <http://www.ft-ci.org>

Seventh worker assassinated by goverment repression or the bosses' hitmen, in 5 months. We have to stop them!

This morning, the union leader at Toyota, Argenis Vásquez, organizational secretary of the union, was assassinated in front of his house. While he was getting ready to leave his residence to meet with a lawyer, as a part of his union activities, he was murdered at close range by hitmen who were traveling in a vehicle. The Toyota workers' anger at the murder was not long in coming. The firm has been occupied, since the workers point out the Japanese multinational as possibly politically and intellectually responsible for this despicable murder.

In Venezuela, the Colombianization of union conflicts (the practice of resorting to hitmen to assassinate trade unionists in the middle of workers' conflicts) is beginning to become a everyday practice. Comrade Vásquez is the seventh worker assassinated in only five months, that we have seen shot to death, workers that were struggling against Venezuelan and transnational employers. Last November, three workers' leaders from Aragua were assassinated by hitmen, after they supported the workers' seizure of the Colombian transnational Lácteos Alpina, because of its systematic failure to fulfill the collective contract. In January of this year, two workers who were backing the seizure of the Japanese automotive transnational Mitsubishi, were shot by the regional police of the Governor of Anzoátegui, and a mid-level workers' leader of the union at Mitsubishi was assassinated two weeks ago at the entrance to his house. This time, a union leader at Toyota, a firm that was in a union conflict, was assassinated by hitmen.

For a big national strike of the entire automotive industry now, an industry that has had a total of three workers assassinated so far this year. For the immediate investigation of this despicable crime. Trial and punishment for the guilty. Mobilization and struggle until the whereabouts of those responsible for this crime are found. As the Toyota workers pointed out so well, the intellectual and political culprits point to the Toyota multinational.

As we said in the declaration of the national campaign in opposition to repression against workers in struggle, "A brutal form of intimidation of the workers is appearing, which can only be stopped by the workers' movement itself. For that reason, we are calling on all tendencies of the revolutionary and union left, as well as human rights' organizations, to build up a Great National Campaign against repression of workers' struggles, through press releases and united actions. We must not confine the struggle against repression and the assassinations to branches of industry or geographical regions; rather we must understand that the murder of one worker who struggles is a brutal attack against all workers. Contrary to what Chávez says, we say that the workers have the right to organize workers' self-defense brigades against the bosses' hitmen and the impunity fostered by the government. They have this class 'right' from the very moment that the employers arm and pay hitmen to intimidate and murder. The workers cannot cede this right to bourgeois law, since, as we have seen, bourgeois law encourages impunity and with that, the demoralization of workers and campesinos."