On May 15th, Venezuelan
president Hugo Chávez took a bold and historic initiative, when he
decided at a meeting in Puerto Ordáz in Guayana, Bolívar state, to put
workers at the forefront of the running of the primary industries
located in this region.
As part of the Plan Guayana Socialista (Socialist Guyana Plan), the
workers of the nearby factories had organized "round-tables" (working
groups), where they had been discussing concrete proposals to advance
in the direction of workers' control as the only solution to the
critical state of affairs in the companies concerned.
This work got a huge push one year ago in May 2009. After a meeting
between himself and workers’ representatives from these companies,
Chavez made an appealed to the workers to promote workers' control and
the election of managers from below. He also signed a decree
expropriating five briquette companies, among them Orinoco Iron,
Venezolana de Prerreducidos del Caroní (VENPRECAR), Materiales
Siderúrgicos (MATESI), Complejo Siderúrgico de Guayana (COMSIGUA), and
also Tubos de Acero de Venezuela (TAVSA) and Cerámicas Carabobo. The
nationalisation of these final product companies which had never been
in state hands before was aimed at taking control of the whole
production process.
This move caused deep concern among the bureaucrats and state
functionaries who desperately tried to bury Chávez speech under a layer
of confusion and hide its revolutionary content. However, the workers
took up the radical ideas of this speech and transformed them into
concrete proposals in the work groups of Plan Guayana Socialista.
On Saturday 15th, this bore fruit in a ceremony where
Chávez swore in a group of workers as company presidents and supply-
and commercialisation directors, most of whom had been elected
democratically by the workers themselves in the working groups. Thus
the presidents of companies like SIDOR (steel), ALCASA (aluminium),
VENALUM (aluminium) and Carbonorca (coal) are now workers from these
companies. Among these, we find comrades with a long history of left
wing militancy, such as Elio Sayago in Alcasa and Carlos d'Oliveira in
SIDOR, a member of the Revolutionary Front of Steelworkers. According
to Chávez, the aim of the changes in the presidency of the companies is
to introduce workers' control immediately.
Incapacity of the bureaucracy
This move on the part of Chávez can only be explained by the
critical situation that has developed in the basic industries of
Guayana in the last two years. The re-nationalization of SIDOR in April 2008,
was the product of the heroic struggle for more than one year of the
Guyanese working class, and opened a period of enthusiasm and hopes for
the future. Workers wanted to put the company at the service of the
people and break all the elements of capitalist exploitation.
However, the workers were soon to face a new enemy: the caste of
bureaucratic functionaries and managers, many of them left in place
from when the company was controlled by the Argentinean multinational,
who tried to sabotage production and thus undermine and discredit the
decision to nationalize SIDOR. This resulted in huge problems and there
were even actions of direct sabotage, like the fire which broke out in
June 2009 in MIDREX II, one of SIDOR's processing plants, causing the
paralization of the plant and thus a steep fall in production. This was
clearly a conscious attack, carried out by people from within who had
very precise knowledge of the production process. Other incidents
included irregularities in the storage department and doubtful
management practices in the commercialisation sector. Thus production
fell from a normal level of approximately 4.6 million tons of iron per
year to approximately 3 million in 2009.
Another problem was the level of outsourcing, where multinational
and private companies provided services such as transport and delivery
of raw-materials to the state-owned companies. Chávez also denounced
this in his speech on May 15th, reminding everyone of the fact that
SIDOR in 2009 alone paid 423 million Bolívares ($US 98 million) to such
outsourcing companies. The work carried out by these outside
contractors could have been carried out in a much cheaper way, if all
the links in the production chain were state-owned. Through
bureaucratic mismanagement and secret deals with multinationals, the
state-owned companies are in fact benefitting the multinational
companies.
All this is the ultimate proof that the bureaucracy is incapable of
running the newly nationalized industries. Chávez simply had no other
choice than to base himself on the workers, otherwise the future of the
primary industries in Guayana seemed very bleak indeed and the most
likely perspective would have been the closure of various plants, which
would have meant mass lay-offs.
Workers organize and resist sabotage
As we have reported in previous articles,
the workers quickly realized this and began to organize and push for
the implementation of workers' control. There were elements of workers'
control in some SIDOR departments, one of the being the “Departamento
de Mantenimiento de Crudas” were the workers resisted the appointment
from above of an individual associated with the former multinational
owner and went on to elect a well-known Socialist as the director of
the department.
Another good example of the thirst for Socialist ideas among the
workers and an indication of the mood developing in SIDOR was the
setting up in April last year of the UBT, the Bolivarian Workers'
University, with more than 1,300 workers registered. The UBT gives
workers weekly classes, not just in administration, mathematics and
other technical aspects, but also in politics and theory.
The working groups of the Plan Guayana Socialista were also an arena
of struggle, where the workers constantly had to fight for the
programme of workers' control. “We had to put forward concrete
proposals which can put the factories back on track and we fought to
get a majority for them in the round-tables” José Padrino López, a
SIDOR worker, told Marxist.com. “We are not in this for the sake of
positions, but only to fulfil the will of president Chávez: the
implementation of workers' control in the companies of Guayana”.
Future tasks and dangers
The selection of comrades such as Carlos d'Oliveira and Elío Sayago
as presidents is obviously a blow to the bureaucracy, but it doesn't
mean that the battle is over. The corrupt managers are now plotting, in
an unholy alliance with elements of the opposition and the reformist
sectors of the trade-union movement, in order to sabotage production
and suspend the decisions of Chávez in mid-air. Their aim is to block
all the initiatives in direction of workers' control and act as a fifth
column which will make life impossible for the revolutionaries in the
new management of the companies. They want workers’ control to fail and
they will stop at nothing to make sure it does.
The comrades at the head of the companies are taking over factories
in a very difficult state. In a sense the situation that they face can
be compared to that of Lenin and Trotsky after the taking of power in
October 1917. The main task now is to rebuild the nation (and in this
case the companies) under the leadership of the proletariat. As a
matter of fact, Lenin’s Draft Regulations on Workers’ Control could be used as a model on which to develop workers’ control in these companies.
It is necessary to take concrete steps to defend the companies against corruption, mismanagement and sabotage:
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Investigate all the deals and contracts with companies who sell raw
material or provide out-sourced services to the companies which are
part of the production process. An end must be put to the deals that
only favour the multinational companies. All these contracts should be
taken in-house, maintaining all the workers involved and improving
their conditions to the same level as the workers in the state owned
companies and making them participate in workers’ control.
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Just like in the first years of the Soviet Union, it is necessary to
put tested revolutionary cadres with a proven track record of
revolutionary militancy in the leading positions of the companies. No
bureaucratic technician must be allowed to have an independent position
– they must be under the strict control of the workers.
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These new worker managers will come under all sort of pressures, and
attempts to buy them off and isolate them from the rank and file
workers. They might become absorbed by the bureaucracy or demoralised.
To fight against this they must maintain at all times close contact
with the rank and file and must be accountable on a regular basis to
the democratically elected workers’ councils and the workers mass
meetings.
The struggle for workers' control is deepening in Guayana, but in
the last analysis it will not be decided only in the factories. The
struggle for workers' control goes hand in hand with the struggle
between left and right within the PSUV. If the right-wing bureaucrats
manage to get complete control over the party, they will use this
stranglehold to finish the experience of workers' control in SIDOR,
ALCASA and all the other companies.
On the other hand, it is clear that the fate of the movement towards
workers' control is closely tied to the general development of the
revolution. In the long run, it is not possible to build Socialism in
one country and much less in one factory. If the commanding heights of
the Venezuelan economy remain in private hands, the Capitalist market
will impose itself on the factories under workers' control and
ultimately destroy any attempt to move towards Socialism. The Guayana
workers must therefore inscribe on their banner the demand for the
expropriation of the land, the key sectors of industry, the food sector
and the banks, as the first step towards a real democratically planned
Socialist economy.
Website of the Venezuelan Marxists: Lucha de Clases
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