Venezuela: Vivex workers take over the factory

[cyu]

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/venezuela/venezuela-vivex-workers-take-over-factory-1.jpghttp://www.marxist.com/images/stories/venezuela/venezuela-vivex-workers-take-over-factory-2.jpg

Venezuela: Vivex workers take over the factory
http://www.marxist.com/venezuela-vivex-workers-take-over-factory.htm

the workers are "demanding the intervention of the state, so that we can continue producing normally, but under workers’ control..."

"Here in Venezuela, far too many people are looking to the top waiting for president Chávez to solve their problems... it is the people and the workers who have to push the revolution forward from below, through the taking over and occupation of factories..."

[wigsa]

Very impressive stuff.It'll be interesting to see how the Chavez administration reacts to this...could be the kickstart of a wider movement in the region.

[Oneironaut]

Chávez has been hesitant in these situations before, I doubt he will act in these workers' interests soon, if at all.

[eyedrop]

Hopefully the state will help them instead of siding with the old owners.

[Herman]

They should not wait for permission from Chavez. Take it over, regardless of what Chavez says.

[eyedrop]

Yep, hopefully they will only have corporate goons trying to take it back, although I wouldn't be overly surprised if the police join in.


As Chavez have newly said
"All those companies where there are problems with the workers, where workers are not paid their wages, where the employers exploit the workers, or where a company closes down and does not pay its workers, or where it has become indebted and cannot pay its workers, well, they have to be recovered, nationalised, taken over". Adding "this is what socialism is, the social ownership of the means of production". Link (http://www.marxist.com/chavez-orders-investigation-killing-trade-unionists.htm)
He also added an appeal espicially to the working class to nationalise such businesess as far as I understood from the article.

I don't think the government would like the political backlash from government agents (police) being involved on the wrong side. I would also be fearful of state beauracrats gaining control.


I may be drawing more conclusions than my knowledge should permit though. My knowledge of Venezuela is quite lackluster.:(

[cyu]

I see a few different options, depending on what kind of "leftist" government you have.

1. Wait and see - let both sides do what they want. If anybody on any side is assaulted, just investigate it like any other criminal case.
2. Nationalize the company and have the elected president appoint an executive to run the company.
3. Nationalize the company and have the community surrounding the company elect an executive to run it.
4. Let the employees vote on how to run the company - though it must still follow existing environmental / product safety laws.
5. Let the employees vote on how to run the company - if it does anything that hurts the environment or consumers, let the community deal with them. If anybody on any side is assaulted, just investigate it like any other criminal case.

[cyu]

http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/venezuela/sabino.jpg
Venezuela: “We have gone from the immediate demands to workers’ control”
http://www.marxist.com/venezuela-from-immediate-demands-workers-control.htm

On November 20th they called the union to a meeting to inform us they did not have enough money to pay the utilidades (bonus pay) in full, and the company had losses of more than BsF 8 million.

It was at this time that we held a mass meeting of the workforce and decided to take over the factory. The aim was not just to get satisfaction for our demands, but also to take over the factory and start producing ourselves. We had had a number of discussions already and thought it was time to show the company the degree to which we had managed to organise ourselves.

It took us several months of discussions with the workers, explaining what workers' control is, explaining the plans of the bosses. In one way or another, this helped us achieve a bigger degree of workers' unity.

It was an impressive meeting. There were workers who had never participated in a mass meeting before, but we used the provocation of the company to explain clearly that the bosses are no friends of the workers.

...Workers marched from the plant, through the service road on Avenida Raul Leoni, in Barcelona, to the Town Hall of Bolivar council. There, the recently elected PSUV mayor met with us together with a three-person commission, which was sympathetic to us.

...we had a meeting between the workers and the mayor, explaining our proposals and asking for solidarity and support, which she agreed to.

The demonstration yesterday, the energy we had, the spirit of struggle, was partly the result of the statement of the president [Chavez] on December 1st, when he said that any company that is closed down, which does not want to pay its workers, where workers' rights are being trampled upon, and those companies that want to declare bankruptcy without a justified cause, should be taken over and intervened by the State. Despite the fact that we took over the factory on November 20th, and the president made his statement on December 1st, the truth is that the president had already made similar appeals in the past, but unfortunately there had been no-one in the leadership of the trade union movement to take that up and promote factory occupations.

Today, Wednesday, December 3rd, we were granted the right to speak at the national assembly and the deputies discussed how to get raw materials to Vivex, so that we don't paralyse production and also the issue of finding a market for the windscreens.

...Despite the fact that we have little experience in this field we are convinced that the factory, run by the workers through collective decisions taken in mass meetings can carry out work in an effective way, not only for the workers themselves, but also outside the factory, where we have the support of the representatives of the communal councils.

There are propaganda committees, which we have sent out to cover the whole of Barcelona, with leaflets, flyers, statements. We have also used car-mounted loudspeakers. We are making an appeal to the communal councils, the students, the peasants and all social and political organisations to unite to our struggle, to help us in whatever way they can, with moral or material support. We want to transform the company from a private enterprise to a social, collective one.

...I have always told the workers that we have to trust in our own forces. Because many say: "well, the mayor, the governor, maybe the president" and I always reply that above all is the rank and file. We are going to determine the path that we want.

...now we have a real democratic organisation with the participation of the workers, and we have started to fight for our wages and conditions, challenging him in the factory and he is no longer able to control us.

For instance, one of many strategies of the boss was to prevent us from voting on November 23rd. This was a crazy idea. We have around 400 heads of family, maybe 1000 votes in total. But the attempts of the boss were in vain, because the workers, as we had decided, went to vote. We, the workers, must defend this revolutionary process which the president has been promoting. We have many experiences. In other historical times this factory occupation would not have taken place. Today the workers take over factories and put them to production with the help of the revolutionary process. In previous times we would have been subject to repression and maybe even killed.

[Revy]

Awesome news.:)

[scarletghoul]

Fuck yeah

Venezuela Venezuela Venezuela yeah