Venezuela: Solidarity sign-on letter with unionists and Fundimeca workers

Attn:

The Public Prosecutors Office No.5 of the city of Valencia,
Control Tribunal 7 of the city of Valencia, State of Carabobo,
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

We the undersigned union, social and political leaders from different countries, demand an immediate end to the judicial persecution of Stalin Perez Borges, national coordinator of the National Union of Workers (UNT), and the rest of the workers involved to the Fundimeca case.

They are victims of a boss who participated in the 2002 coup attempt, and who has refused to comply with an order from the labour inspectorate of the state of Carabobo obliging him to rehire nine workers, resulting in mobilisations by the workers in the factory in defence of their rights.

Today, the boss hopes to make the workers pay for their just struggle in the courts and is subjecting them to measures that deprive them of the right to travel outside of the state and threats of jail terms.

It is unjustifiable that in a revolutionary process, like that which Venezuela is living through, a judicial system that favours the rich continues to prevail and that there exists attempts to criminalise the struggle of the workers.

Yet this is being done in the specific case of Fundimeca, with the perverse aim of trying to terrorise the struggle of all the workers in the country.

In this sense, we reject the actions of the Public Prosecutors Office and the judge involved in the Fundimeca case, essentially because we do not accept the criminalisation of the just struggle of workers, because we do not accept any coup-plotting plaintiff, less so a boss that refuses to comply with the Organic Labour Law and that utilises hired assassins to terrorise workers and, finally, because we do not accept any more impunity.

Given all this, we call for a public denunciation of these events in order to demand an end to the persecution of the workers involved in the Fundimecia case and that the charges against them be dropped.

[To add your name to the letter send an email to solidaridadfundimeca@gmail.com. Include your union position or social organisation you belong to.]

From GLW issue 764