Simon Cunich
In January, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the nationalisation of Venepal, one of the country's largest paper mills, which had been occupied and run by workers, he called on "workers' leaders to follow this path ... any factories closed or abandoned, we are going to take them over. All of them." This appeal has been met by workers of Constructora Nacional de Valvulas, a company producing valves for the oil industry. CNV was abandoned by its owners in December 2002 during a nationwide bosses' lockout.
The lockout was part of a campaign of economic sabotage led by Venezuela's big business owners, aimed at undermining the democratically elected government. After two months of mass demonstrations and struggle by workers, the lockout was defeated in January 2003 and production in most industries restored. Workers were largely left uncompensated for the months without pay and some left without jobs at all where companies were declared bankrupt or were simply abandoned by their bosses'.
At CNV, in Los Teques, Miranda, more than 100 families were left without a source of income. During the following months, the workers organised and commenced negotiations with the company owner, Andres Sosa Pietri, who was an active supporter of the unsuccessful April 2002 coup against the Chavez government.
By May, the workers' negotiation had clearly failed to resolve the crisis, and a group of workers occupied the factory's entrance in order to prevent finished products or machinery leaving the premises. At the same time, workers at the Venepal paper mill had occupied their plant and resumed production.
The CNV has for more than 30 years produced valves for the state-owned oil company PDVSA. During the 1990s, Sosa Pietri was a PDVSA director, using the position to award his company exclusive contracts. He has consistently advocated the privatisation of the oil industry, and opposed Chavez's reform of PDVSA that has redirected profits into social welfare programs.
Sosa Pietri's attempts to have the CNV workers removed from the gates of the factory in August 2003 were defeated through the actions of the labour movement and community organisations. However, the struggle was unable to maintain its momentum as the workers were forced to look for other work. The picket eventually diminished and the factory continued to lie idle.
But when Venepal was nationalised, the struggle of the CNV workers regained strength. Drawing on Chavez's call for workers to "be united, learn and participate", 63 workers occupied the premises on February 17 this year. The workers have proposed a resolution to call for the nationalisation of CNV under workers control, based on the model of Venepal. The model involves joint management of the workers and the state (in which the workers have a majority of representatives on the company's board).
As Chavez pointed out at the time of Venepal's nationalisation, the "role of the workers in this model is fundamental and this is the difference between this model and the capitalist model".
The workers are calling for national and international solidarity from supporters of Venezuela's revolutionary process. Information about donations and an address for solidarity messages can be found at <http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/support_cnv_workers.htm>.
From Green Left Weekly, April 27, 2005.
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