"We have just attended a massive march of workers for May Day in Caracas", Coral Wynter, a coordinator of the current Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network's brigade to Venezuela, told Green Left Weekly.
Wynter estimated the crowd size as "around 500,000 to 750,000 people all in red t-shirts from all over the country."
"We danced and skipped along the route from La Bandera to Puente Laguno", Wynter added. "It was very exciting and nothing like anybody has experienced before. You really feel the power of the working class."
Wynter told GLW that herself and John Cleary, from the Electrical Trades Union, gave greetings from the stage on behalf of Australian workers and "were greeted with a loud cheer".
The government of President Hugo Chavez marked the international workers' day by decreeing a 30% increase in the minimum wage (already the highest in Latin America) as well as a 30% wage increase across the board for public service workers.
The May Day march also occurred in a context of important steps forward for the Venezuelan working class — most significantly the re-nationalisation of the privatised Sidor steelworks after a long struggle by its work force and the sacking of the anti-worker labour minister who had sided with management in that dispute and has attempted to split the union movement.
GLW's Federico Fuentes spoke with Stalin Perez Borges, a national coordinator of the National Union of Workers (UNT) and member of the editorial board of Marea Socialista, and Marcos Garcia, the national coordinator of the public sector union federation, Fentrasep, and also a member of the Marea Socialista current. Both are militants in the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
@question = How is Marea Socialista preparing for May Day?
Perez: We believe that this year May Day is very special because a historic change has been produced in the country. The re-nationalisation of Sidor has changed the political map.
Chavez understood that the nationalisation was a fair demand of the Sidor workers and the revolutionary people. The struggle of the workers was an example of unity and commitment for the entire workers' movement.
A new opportunity exists — for the workers to be protagonists of the first order in the changes that are necessary; for the government to reunite with the workers; and for the revolutionary process. It has ignited a powerful motor.
Garcia: The political change signified by the re-nationalisation has given a new boost to the working class. The increased involvement of the workers is notable in the fight to deepen the revolutionary process. This is why this May Day is different.
The change is truly historic. I don't want to say that everything is assured, of course not. But today the conditions to achieve our objectives are much better.
In the public sector in particular we have been injected with more energy to continue fighting for our collective contract, for which we have been waiting for more than four years and could be fulfilled soon.
Perez: In regards to how we see this May Day, we are internationalists and are very worried about the situation in Bolivia. It is a fact that the Bolivian bourgeoisie is extremely racist and retrograde — the child of North American imperialism. It seeks to destroy the revolutionary process in Bolivia and the government of Evo Morales using whatever type of violence.
We are ready for any campaign needed to defeat the Bolivian right wing, which is to defeat the North American right wing.
May 1 is a very important day for workers globally. This year we commemorate 122 years since those heroic fighters, the martyrs of Chicago, were assassinated. Their crime was to demand the eight-hour day.
They did not capitulate and they made history. This demonstration of consistency clearly shows that when your struggle is just, sooner or later you will win. This May Day we are going, in Venezuela, for those victories that are still outstanding.
@question = What has been achieved and what remains unresolved?
Garcia: Firstly, a general increase in salaries for all workers is necessary. The basic increase announced by Chavez every year is not enough. We demand a general emergency increase, higher than the indices of inflation.
This is an increase that will serve to relieve millions who have not yet been able to discuss their collective contracts.
Secondly there is the issue of casualisation. We cannot continue tolerating these contracts that allow the bosses, the national government itself and the state and municipal governments to fail to comply with the law without any sanction. It appears that this will change with Sidor. The previous labour minister and the labour ministry inspectors did nothing to stop this.
In the case of Sidor, we hope the government understands that we cannot repeat the same failed experiences of co-management or aim to implement the same type of management as in the case of CANTV or Electricidad de Caracas [companies nationalised last year]. The steel plant must have a new productive model, truly socialist.
Perez: The reduction of the work day is very important. The six-hour day can and should be established by presidential decree. This is an issue not only of work conditions, but a political issue of the highest importance.
We need a working class with the time to dedicate itself to the management of the affairs of state and government. The working class needs the time to participate democratically in the planning and implementation of socialism.
The reduction of the work day means more time to rest and care for our environment. It can create more employment. And the president can do it, he has all the tools. The workers can win this right.
@question = Can you talk about the situation in the union movement?
Garcia: A fundamental step forward was won when the president threw out the ex-labour minister Jose Ramon Rivero — as he deserved. This was a demand of the majority of workers. Rivero dedicated himself to strengthening his own union current, which is not representative. Neither is this phantom of a new union federation that he is proposing.
These two acts, the nationalisation of Sidor and the dismissal of Rivero, open up a great opportunity to overcome the dispersion of the union movement. In Marea Socialista, we call on all union currents that defend the revolutionary process to unite and leave aside the differences that have us so divided, and put forward the points that unite us — which are many and they are very important. This way we can give the workers the union organisation they need.
In this sense on the 1st of May, we are going to march in every place, in Caracas and around the country, under these banners. We call on all the workers to take over the streets on the 1st of May and make it a great day of struggle.
[Translated from Marea Socialista by Kiraz Janicke. A longer version can be found on <http://venezuelanlaysis.com>.]