The Venezuelan left-wing labor federation CUTV, affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions, issued a response (below) to a statement of the CBST, the government-aligned union federation. -THE EDITORS.

 

Caracas, July 1, 2022

IN THE WORKPLACES AND IN THE STREETS WE WILL DEFEND OUR RIGHTS.

A RESPONSE TO THE CBST COMMUNIQUÉ

 

Recently a communiqué of the so-called Central Bolivariana Socialista de Trabajadores (CBST) [ Bolivarian Socialist Workers Center] was issued, where they confirm their support for the policies of the Government –which they plainly justify– and they accuse those of us who demonstrate against their policies as “paid counterrevolutionaries” and make threats of violence in the streets.

From the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV) [United Center of the Workers of Venezuela] and the Frente Nacional de Lucha de la Clase Trabajadora (FNLCT) [National Front of Struggle of the Working Class], in view of the claims of the above-mentioned communiqué and the gravity of the events, and the facts on the ground, we have decided to speak out in order to give a clear answer, calling on all the forces of the workers’ movement to support and join this statement, even though we understand that the best response is to increase and strengthen the united struggle of the working class in defense of its rights.

1. Capitalism in the world and in Venezuela. Double-talk, double standards.

The authors  of the CBST pamphlet, as the present PSUV leadership is accustomed to do, present in the first place an apparently “leftist” discourse affirming that “the neoliberal model that dominates the world and Venezuela” is in crisis focusing its hopes on an imaginary “multipolar world” as the salvation of the people. That is to say that these false “leftists” of the trade union elite of the CBST do not see the crisis of the world capitalist system but a crisis of “neoliberal hegemony”. But it turns out that the capitalist system, in its current imperialist phase, is in a deep crisis and the internal contradictions sharpen, generating conflicts and wars (such as the war in Russia and Ukraine) and widening the gap of social inequalities all over the planet.

For us, the existence of the capitalist mode of production and distribution (determined by the capital-labor contradiction) is the origin of all the injustices and calamities experienced by the working class and the peoples of the world and, for sure, no reformist solution led by timid “progressive” governments that puts themselves at the service of the system, will be able to overcome the conditions of exploitation and oppression suffered by millions of men and women of our nations.

Under its accommodating approach, the CBST does not rationally conceive of the class struggle nor of the transforming role of the working class, the only social class capable of making a true revolution in alliance with the poor peasants and the popular sectors in general, a revolution that has never occurred in Venezuela. Incidentally, it is striking that the leadership of the CBST questions neoliberalism in the rest of the world, but it is an accomplice of the neoliberal adjustment program applied by the current Venezuelan government.

2. The CBST bureaucracy does not explain the real causes of the crisis in Venezuela.

They do not say that the origin of the crisis lies in the fact that we have never ceased to be a dependent capitalist economy and that the oil rentier economy collapsed because it has not been overcome, despite the rhetorical speeches. The imperialist coercive measures (the criminal sanctions) were not the origin of the current crisis, but rather exacerbated the structural crisis of a mono-exporting and mono-industrial economy, with traditional and new parasitic bourgeoisies fed by oil income, which has been irresponsibly squandered, without any sovereign industrial development plan.

Between 1999 and 2014 the income received from oil exports was 960,589 million dollars, an average of 56,500 million dollars annually for 17 years What was done with that huge sum?

From 2003 to 2013 more than 300 billion dollars were directly allocated to the private sector. Through massive fraud with imports and the remittance of profits abroad, private, bourgeois sectors increased their assets deposited abroad by more than 110 billion dollars in the same period of time. This is not counting the great resources appropriated by the corrupt officials installed in different sectors of the Venezuelan State: the genesis of the mafias of the nouveau riche and the misnamed “revolutionary bourgeoisie”. That is to say, a huge amount of foreign currency has been lost to the Venezuelan nation, without any investment plan for the development of the productive forces, nor to assure the people the satisfaction of the most important needs of food, health, education, salaries, decent jobs, social security, quality public services, making Venezuela a highly vulnerable nation.

Venezuela has not won its sovereignty from the international financial system. The foreign debt grew by 200% in 20 years, from US $49 billion in 1999 to US $154 billion in 2018.

During the government of Nicolas Maduro, debt commitments reached 55% of the country’s oil export revenues in 2015 and in the period from 2013 to 2017, this government paid some 109 billion dollars in foreign debt. In other words, while the working people were being asked to make sacrifices, the government boasted of “punctually” making exorbitant debt
payments to the international financial system. Thus, disinvestment in the oil industry and in the basic companies of Guayana, among other productive entities of the State, has its origin in the full transfer of oil income to the national and international private sector, through direct and indirect means, without any consideration for the nation or the Venezuelan people, a situation that was later exacerbated by the drop in oil revenues.

3. A neoliberal adjustment program is the government’s response to the crisis: more poverty, inequalities, injustices.

The current national crisis has its fundamental origin in the collapse of dependent capitalism and the model of oil rentier accumulation, amid the government’s administration at the service of the parasitic capitalists and corrupt mafias. This crisis is then aggravated by the aggressions committed by the imperialist governments of the U.S. and Europe against the Venezuelan nation, not because there is a revolution here or anything like that, but because the interests of the gringo and European monopolies are in play and are in competition with Russian and Chinese capital.

But when the crisis rears its head and worsens, hitting the working people hard, what is the response of Nicolás Maduro’s government? The same as that of all bourgeois governments: a neo-liberal adjustment plan (very similar to that of the second government of Carlos Andres Perez and the second government of Caldera), started in 2018 with the cynical title of “Program for Recovery, Growth and Economic Prosperity”:

1. Privatization of public enterprises (after their bankruptcy).
2. Deregulation of the economy: dismantling of all controls on prices, costs, and profits (freedom of action for unscrupulous traders), promotion of a savage free market.
3. The increased use of a regressive and anti-popular tax system: tax exemptions for the big bourgeoisie (above all to stimulate imports and attract parasitic investments), increase of consumption taxes (VAT, taxes on foreign currency payments, tolls everywhere).
4. Aggressive reduction of public spending (deteriorating public services and downgrading of the personnel who work for the State).
5. Destruction of the value of earnings and imposition of labor deregulation: severe reduction and freezing of salaries and pensions; pulverization of social benefits, bankruptcy of savings banks  , the pension fund of PDVSA [the State oil company] was looted); dismantling of collective bargaining agreements (memorandum-circular 2792 of the Ministry of Labor and ONAPRE, the Government Office of Budget Memorandum-circular 2792); suppression of trade union rights and the right to strike; massive, open and simulated dismissals with the agreement and complicity of the Ministry of Labor; (fraudulent application of 148 of the LOTTT [Labor Code], among other forms); fraud in labor relations became generalized: subcontracting, outsourcing, individualization and commodification of labor; dismantling of health and safety protections in the workplace; increased authoritarianism and abuse by employers against worker’s job security; with the authorities’ consent and acceptance; among many other situations that make the quality of life of workers (active and retired) and their families more precarious and deteriorated as never before.

To give us an idea of the process of real wage destruction in our country: real wages in our country: in May 2012, the minimum income of a worker (minimum wage plus food basket) represented 153% of the food basket and by June 2022 it represents only 7.10% of the food basket.

We also have the de facto dollarization, cynically promoted by the Maduro government as an “escape valve” in the face of hyperinflation, but which increases the helplessness of the great mass of workers and pensioners who receive salaries and pensions in bolivars, while goods are generally priced in dollars. From the perspective of political economy, the only merchandise that is not paid in dollars is the commodity of labor power.

They try to justify the anti-worker labor policy  with the illegal imperialist sanctions, but at the same time we see how the government protects and pampers the parasitic capitalists of the State and the “entrepreneurs” of taverns, casinos, gigantic and luxurious supermarkets and delivery services with unprotected workers, where neither the LOTTT nor the LOPCYMAT [Workplace health and safety law] are applied and where they are overexploited and their labor power is abused with impunity among a workforce mostly comprised of young people.

And while workers who work for the Government are having a significant part of their salaries confiscated with the application of the criminal directives of ONAPRE to cut benefits condemning them to lives in misery, high-ranking state officials drive around in imported state-of-the-art vans and are converted into tycoons who now live in mansions and have unimaginable properties. It is not at all difficult to know what interests these bureaucrats are now defending. All of this is justified and defended by the CBST communiqué.

4. Anti-democratic and authoritarian practices accompany anti-worker and anti-popular policies.

As always happens when neo-liberal adjustment policies are applied, the Government increases anti-democratic and authoritarian measures, typical of any reactionary bourgeois State, with the aim of crushing any hint of workers’ and popular resistance to policies that deepen injustices and inequities. They want to have workingmen and women without rights who are content with such a situation. To this end, they increasingly exercise repression, harassment, layoffs, blackmail, criminalization, and prosecution of those who dare to protest, denounce, confront, and expose that the whole discourse of the supposed ” “revolution” “workers’ government” “Bolivarian socialism” is a pure and simple fraud.

This explains why the President of the Republic, in a pathetic speech, calls for the imprisonment of anyone who marches in protest of the low salaries and ONAPRE’s directives [wage and benefit cuts]. And the president of Siderurgica del Orinoco (SIDOR) threatens to fire, suspend, and send to prison the steel workers who were forced to carry out a work stoppage to demand compliance with the salary increase promised by the president of the company himself, and to reject that hundreds of “unrequired” workers have been downgraded with wage and benefit cuts and subjected to misery and total defenselessness, a situation also suffered by those who work in the rest of the basic companies in Guayana.

In a similar situation are health workers who, after risking their lives in the fight against the pandemic, are victims of widespread harassment and of widespread employer-police/military harassment, being accused of theft of medicines and supplies without any investigation, with outrageous acts against the physical and moral integrity of personnel in hospitals and comprehensive diagnostic centers.

We have also seen how dozens of workers, including union leaders, have been prosecuted and sent to prison for months and even years without due process for defending labor rights, for making claims or denouncing acts of corruption, or used as scapegoats to protect real criminals.

It is clear, that the intention to intimidate the working class is evident when a wage earner is treated as a dangerous criminal or even worse, as a terrorist. a salaried worker who has confronted his public or private employer and finds that the entire criminal police machinery of the State rushes against him to destroy him morally, if not physically.

An instrument conceived for the abominable criminalization of the workers and the people is the unconstitutional “law against hatred” repeatedly used for such purposes.

Now we are faced with the aggressive and threatening communiqué from the CBST leadership, where they promise a “fulminating combat plan,” but not against the bosses who violate the rights of the workers, nor against the corrupt bureaucrats, nor against the anti-worker policies, not even against those who against the enablers of imperialist interference such as Guide and his clique who are free and talking wit the government..

No, the CBST’s “fulminating combat plan” will be against the workers who dare to protest.

But as is the custom of those who abuse their power, a threat is preceded by a demonization to try to justify the attack. They say that the salaried and retired workers and retirees who protest for our rights we are all in the pay and at the service of powerful enemies of the government and that we are also organized in “armed gangs”. We really do not know if any of those who go out to protest are financed by someone but what we can affirm is that we are not financed by anyone, just as the hundreds of other protestors are not financed by anyone, just as the hundreds of thousands and millions of downgraded workers are not financed, but laid off, with miserable salaries, mistreated by the bosses and the government.  Nor are they armed people, because what they receive in wages is not enough to feed themselves, much less to buy weapons. What is very clear is that the protests, energetic but peaceful, against the plundering of our labor and human rights, are all legitimate and necessary, backed by Article 68 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to public demonstration, in a peaceful and unarmed manner.

We denounce that violence against those who protest has begun, but it is not carried out by CBST union leaders or workers convinced that the government must be defended, no, it is carried out by groups of armed motorists, paid by the government, who calls them “colectivos”, but who are really mercenary bands organized to intimidate and attack citizens who are working people and who demand respect for their rights, they do not attack rich people or criminals. The civilian repressors, paid by the governmental leadership and sponsored by the pro-neoliberal union bureaucracy, act outside the Constitution and are a threat to the citizenry.

To justify its “fulminating combat plan”, the CBST also says that the protesters are resurrecting the “extinct CTV” but it turns out that it was the government, through the Ministry of Labor, who “resuscitated” the CTV and other trade union centers of the opposition right wing, through their “tripartite dialogues”, dialogues endorsed by the ILO. Such tripartite mechanisms, set up by the government with the support of the imperialist centers, give a strong role to Fedecamaras [opposition employers federation] and the leaderships of certain trade unions . It is no accident that they exclude the CUTV and non-confederate grassroots organizations, to legitimize neoliberal policies that assure the capitalists maximum profit at the lowest cost, sacrificing the rights and dignity of the working class.

For this reason, the leadership of the employers, of the government and the [compliant] trade unionists need to isolate and destroy the non-controllable trade union organizations opposed to the neoliberal plan. The aristocracy of the CBST
is not mistaken in its fascist-like  communiqué: they are an odious trade union elite, distant and disconnected from the reality suffered by the working class.

5. Our response: to fight united without allowing ourselves to be intimidated or manipulated.

In the face of this situation, it is necessary to respond with the broadest unity of action of all workers, activists, and retirees, affected and threatened by the massive violations of the Constitution committed by the national government regarding human, civil, social, labor, and political rights. State terrorism against the working people must be confronted with the collective and united courage of millions of men and women who, regardless of their political sympathies, need to enforce their violated rights and fight for a better life. For this reason, we also appeal to the solidarity of international class-conscious trade unionism.

The false polarization (Chavismo-Opposition) only serves to manipulate and divide the working people; the real division that exists in Venezuelan society (as in all capitalist societies) is between bosses and workers, between the bourgeoisie and the working class, between exploiters and the exploited, between the oppressors and the oppressed, between those at the top enjoying power and those of us at the bottom trampled by the powerful. It is clear, and becoming more and more clear, that the State and the present government are not on the side of the exploited and oppressed, but on the side of the exploiters and oppressors.

United we will be invincible!

Whoever governs, we will defend our rights!

Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV)

Frente Nacional de Lucha de la Clase Trabajadora (FNLCT)

 

 

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 Afiliada a la Federación Sindical Mundial (FSM)

 

EN LOS CENTROS DE TRABAJO Y EN LAS CALLES DEFENDEREMOS NUESTROS DERECHOS

RESPUESTA AL COMUNICADO DE LA CBST

Recientemente fue difundido un comunicado de la denominada Central Bolivariana Socialista de Trabajadores (CBST), donde confirman su apoyo a las políticas del Gobierno – las que justifican plenamente –, acusan de“contrarrevolución tarifada” a los que manifestamos en contra de tales políticas y sus efectos y lanzan amenazas de violencia callejera.

 

Desde la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV) y del Frente Nacional de Lucha de la Clase Trabajadora (FNLCT), ante las afirmaciones del referido comunicado y la gravedad de los hechos que se están suscitando, hemos decidido pronunciarnos para darle respuesta categórica, llamando al conjunto de las fuerzas del movimiento de las y los trabajadores a acompañar y sumarse a este pronunciamiento, aunque entendemos que la mejor respuesta es incrementar y fortalecer la lucha unitaria de la clase trabajadora en defensa de sus derechos.

1.  El capitalismo en el mundo y en Venezuela. Doble discurso, doble moral.

Los autores del panfleto de la CBST, como suele hacerlo la cúpula del PSUV-Gobierno, presenta en primer lugar undiscurso aparentemente de “izquierda” afirmando que está en crisis “el modelo neoliberal que domina al mundo capitalista”, centrando sus esperanzas en un imaginario “mundo multipolar” como la salvación de los pueblos. Es decir que estos falsos “izquierdistas” de la elite sindical de la CBST no ven la crisis del sistema capitalista mundial sino la crisis de la “hegemonía neoliberal”. Pero resulta que el sistema capitalista, en su fase imperialista actual, está en una profunda crisis que agudiza sus contradicciones internas, generando conflictos y guerras (como la guerra Rusia- Ucrania) y ampliando la brecha de las desigualdades sociales en todo el planeta.

Para nosotros, la existencia del modo de producción y distribución capitalista (determinado por la contradicción capital-trabajo) es el origen de todas las injusticias y calamidades que vive la clase obrera y los pueblos del mundo y, por cierto, ninguna salida reformista dirigida por timoratos gobiernos “progresistas” que se ponen al servicio del sistema, podrán superar las condiciones de explotación y opresión que padecen millones de hombres y mujeres de nuestras naciones.

Bajo su enfoque acomodaticio, la CBST no concibe racionalmente la lucha de clases ni el papel transformador quele toca jugar a la clase trabajadora, la única clase social capaz de hacer una verdadera revolución en alianza con loscampesinos pobres y los sectores populares en general, revolución que nunca se ha hecho en Venezuela. Por cierto, llama la atención que la cúpula de la CBST cuestiona al neoliberalismo en el resto del mundo, pero es cómplice del programa de ajuste neoliberal que aplica el actual gobierno venezolano.

2.  La burocracia de la CBST no explica las verdaderas causas de la crisis en Venezuela.

No dicen que el origen de la crisis está en que nunca hemos dejado de ser una economía capitalista dependiente y que el rentismo petrolero colapsó porque no ha sido superado, a pesar de los discursos retóricos. Las medidas coercitivas imperialistas (las criminales sanciones) no fueron el origen de la actual crisis, sino que agudizaron lacrisis estructural propia de una economía mono-exportadora.

 

nuevas alimentadas con la renta petrolera, que ha sido dilapidada irresponsablemente, sin que exista ningún plan de desarrollo industrial soberano.

 

Entre 1999 y 2014 los ingresos percibidos por exportaciones petroleras fueron 960.589 millones de dólares, un promedio de 56.500 millones de dólares anuales durante 17 años ¿Qué se hizo con esa inmensa suma?

 

Del 2003 hasta el 2013 fueron asignados directamente más de 300 mil millones de dólares al sector privado. A través del fraude masivo con las importaciones y la remisión de ganancias al exterior, sectores burgueses incrementaron sus activos depositados en el exterior en más de 110 mil millones de dólares en el mismo periodo detiempo. Eso sin contar los grandes recursos apropiados por los corruptos instalados en diversas instancias delEstado venezolano: génesis de las mafias de nuevos ricos y la mal llamada “burguesía revolucionaria”. Es decir, que una masa descomunal de divisas se fugó al exterior y la perdió la nación venezolana, sin que se realizara un plan de inversión para el desarrollo de fuerzas productivas, ni para asegurar al pueblo la satisfacción de las más importantes necesidades de alimentación, salud, educación, salarios, empleos dignos, seguridad social, serviciospúblicos de calidad, haciendo de Venezuela una nación altamente vulnerable.

3.   Un programa de ajuste neoliberal es la respuesta del Gobierno a la crisis: más pobreza,desigualdades, injusticias.

Pero cuando la crisis se manifiesta y se agrava golpeando fuertemente al pueblo trabajador ¿cuál es la respuesta del gobierno de Nicolás Maduro? La misma de todos los gobiernos burgueses: un plan de ajuste neoliberal (muy parecido al del segundo gobierno de Carlos Andrés Pérez y el segundo gobierno de Caldera), iniciado en el 2018 con el cínico “Programa de Recuperación, Crecimiento y Prosperidad Económica”:

1. Privatizaciones de empresas públicas (previa quiebra de estas).
2. Desregulación de la economía: desmontaje de todos los controles de precios, costos y ganancias (manos libres acomerciantes inescrupulosos), promoción del salvaje libre
3. Acentuación de un sistema tributario regresivo y antipopular: excepción de impuestos a la gran burguesía (sobre todo para estimular las importaciones y atraer inversiones parasitarias), incremento de impuestos al consumo (IVA,impuestos al pago en divisas, peajes por doquier).

 

1. Reducción agresiva del gasto público (deteriorando servicios públicos y desmejorando al personal que trabaja para el Estado).
2. Destrucción del valor de la fuerza de trabajo e imposición de la desregulación laboral: extrema reducción y congelamiento de salarios y pensiones; pulverización de las prestaciones sociales, quiebra de las cajas de ahorro y los fondos de pensiones (el de PDVSA fue saqueado); desmantelamiento de las convenciones colectivas(memorando-circular 2792 del Ministerio del Trabajo e Instructivo de la ONAPRE); supresión de la libertad sindicaly el derecho a huelga; despidos masivos, abiertos y simulados con aval y complicidad del Ministerio del Trabajo (aplicación fraudulenta del 148 de la LOTTT, entre otras formas); se generaliza el fraude en las relaciones de trabajo: subcontratación, tercerización, individualización y mercantilización laboral; desmontaje de la protección a la salud y seguridad en el trabajo; mayor autoritarismo y abuso patronal contra trabajadores y trabajadoras conanuencia y aceptación de las autoridades; entre muchas otras situaciones que precarizan y deterioran como nunca la calidad de vida de las y los trabajadores (activos y jubilados) y de sus

 

Para que tengamos idea del proceso de destrucción del salario real en nuestro país: para mayo del 2012 el ingreso mínimo de un trabajador o trabajadora (salario mínimo más cestaticket de alimentación) representaba el 153 % dela Canasta Alimentaria y para junio del 2022 representa apenas el 7,10 % de la Canasta Alimentaria.

También tenemos la dolarización de facto, cínicamente promovida por el Gobierno de Maduro como una “válvula de escape” ante la hiperinflación, pero que acentúa la indefensión de la gran masa de trabajadores y pensionados que perciben salarios y pensiones en bolívares, mientras que las mercancías en general son cotizadas en dólares. Desde la perspectiva de la economía política, la única mercancía que no se paga en dólares en Venezuela es la mercancía fuerzade trabajo.

Y mientras que a las y los trabajadores al servicio del Estado se les confisca parte importante de sus remuneraciones con la aplicación del Instructivo criminal de la ONAPRE, condenándoles a vivir en la miseria, altos funcionariosdel Estado se pasean en camionetas importadas de última generación, convertidos en magnates que ahora viven en mansiones y tienen propiedades inimaginables. No es nada difícil saber cuáles son los intereses que defienden ahora esos burócratas. Todo eso lo justifica y defiende el comunicado de la CBST.

 

4. Prácticas antidemocráticas y autoritarias acompañan las políticas antiobreras y antipopulares.

 

 Como sucede siempre que se aplican planes de ajuste neoliberal, el Gobierno acentúa prácticas antidemocráticas yautoritarias propias de todo Estado burgués reaccionario, con la finalidad de aplastar cualquier atisbo de resistenciaobrera y popular a políticas que profundizan injusticias e inequidades.Quieren tener a trabajadores y trabajadoras sin derechos que se conformen con tal situación. Para ello ejercen de manera creciente represión, hostigamiento,despidos, chantajes, criminalización y judicialización de quienes osen protestar, denunciar, confrontar y poner en evidencia que todo el discurso de la supuesta “revolución” “gobierno obrerista” “socialismo bolivariano” es puro y simple fraude.

Eso explica porque el Presidente de la República, en un discurso patético, llama a meter preso a todo el que salga amarchar en protesta contra los bajos salarios y el instructivo de la ONAPRE. Y el presidente de la Siderúrgica del Orinoco (SIDOR) amenaza con despedir, suspender y mandar a la cárcel a los trabajadores siderúrgicos que se vieron obligados a realizar un paro de labores para exigir cumplimiento del aumento salarial prometido por elmismo presidente de la empresa y rechazar que

 

han sido desmejorados y que cientos de obreros “no requeridos” son sometidos a la miseria y la indefensión total, situación que también padecen los que laboran en el resto de las empresas básicas de Guayana.

En situación similar se encuentran las y los trabajadores de la salud, quienes luego de arriesgar la vida en lucha contrala pandemia, son víctimas de un generalizado acoso y hostigamiento gerencial- policial/militar, siendo acusados de robos de medicamentos e insumos sin que medie investigación alguna, con hechos indignantes contra la integridad física y moral del personal en hospitales y centros de diagnóstico integral.

Ahora nos topamos con el comunicado agresivo y amenazante de la cúpula de la CBST, donde prometen un“fulminante plan de combate”, pero no contra los patronos que violan los derechos de las y los trabajadores, ni contra los burócratas corruptos, ni contra las políticas antiobreras, ni siquiera contra los propiciadores de injerencias imperialistas (como Guaidó y su camarilla que andan libres y dialogando con el gobierno). No, el “fulminante plan de combate” de la CBST será contra las y los trabajadores que se atrevan a realizar protestas.

Pero como ya es costumbre de los que abusan de su poder, la amenaza va precedida de una satanización para pretender justificar el ataque. Dicen que los asalariados y jubilados que protestamos por nuestros derechos, somos todos tarifados al servicio de poderosos enemigos del Gobierno y que además estamos organizados en “bandas armadas”. Realmente ignoramos si alguno de los que sale a protestar es financiado por alguien, lo que sí podemos afirmar es que nosotros no somos financiados por nadie, así como no son financiados los cientos de miles y millones de trabajadoras y trabajadores desmejorados, despedidos, con salarios miserables, maltratados por los patronos y el gobierno. Tampoco son gentearmada, porque lo que perciben como remuneraciones no les alcanza para alimentarse, mucho menos para comprar armas. Lo que si está bien claro es que las protestas, enérgicas pero pacíficas, contra el despojo de nuestros derechoslaborales y humanos, son todas legítimas y necesarias, respaldadas además por el artículo 68 de la Constitución que garantiza el derecho a la manifestación pública, de manera pacífica y sin armas.

Para justificar su “fulminante plan de combate” la CBST también dice que los que protestan están resucitando a la “extinta CTV”, pero resulta que fue el gobierno a través del Ministerio del Trabajo quien “resucitó” a la CTV y demás centrales sindicales de la derecha opositora, a través de sus diálogos tripartitos avalados por la OIT. Tales mecanismos tripartitos, montados por el gobierno con apoyo de los centros imperialistas, le dan fuerteprotagonismo a Fedecamaras y a determinadas direcciones

 

sindicales patronales (no por casualidad excluyen a la CUTV y organizaciones de base no confederadas), con la finalidad de legitimar las políticas neoliberales, políticas que le aseguran a los capitalistas máxima ganancia al menor costo, sacrificando los derechos y la dignidad de la clase trabajadora.

Por eso, las cúpulas de los empresarios, del Gobierno y de los sindicaleros, necesitan segregar y exterminar a las organizaciones sindicales no controlables y opuestas al plan neoliberal. En algo no se equivoca la aristocracia de la CBST en su comunicado facistoide: son una odiosa élite sindical, distante y desconectada de la realidad que padece laclase trabajadora.

5.

Nuestra respuesta: luchar unidos sin dejarnos intimidar ni manipular.

Ahora más que nunca es necesario fortalecer a las organizaciones sindicales que tienen total independencia y autonomía frente al capital, al Estado y a los partidos que sirven a la patronal pública o privada.

La falsa polarización (chavismo-oposición) solo sirve para manipular y dividir al pueblo trabajador; la verdadera división que existe en la sociedad venezolana (como en toda sociedad capitalista) es entre patronos y trabajadores, entre burguesía y clase obrera, entre explotadores y explotados, entre opresores y oprimidos, entre los que están arriba disfrutando del poder y los que estamos abajo pisoteados por los poderosos. Está claro, cada vez más claro, que el Estado y el actual gobierno no están del lado de los explotados y oprimidos, sino de los explotadores y opresores.

¡Unámonos y seremos invencibles!

¡Gobierne quien gobierne, los derechos se defienden!

 

 

Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV) Frente Nacional de Luchade la Clase Trabajadora (FNLCT)

 

Caracas, 1 de julio del 2022