Do not touch Article 122 LOTTT and comply with Article 91 CRBV!
By Jean Mendoza
In the last few days we have witnessed a pathetic parade through media: representatives of Venezuelan business, economists at the service of capital, and union leaders who have lost their way -or never had it- repeating like parrots the same discourse. All of them, from different tribunes, agree on one point: the Organic Labor Law must be reformed. They also agree on a clear objective: to modify Article 122 which protects the calculation of our social benefits on the last full salary earned.
But make no mistake. Behind that technical language, behind those “dispassionate debates” that they propose, behind that false concern for the “future welfare of the workers”, hides the same bosses’ class that for 12 years has kept our wages kidnapped, that has used hyperinflation as a policy of adjustment against the working people, that has bombarded our purchasing power to the point of reducing it to pennies on the dollar per month.
Hypocrisy translates to Jorge Roig and his “concern” for workers
Jorge Roig, the employers’ representative before the ILO, has been one of the most active spokespersons of this campaign. With an astonishing cynicism, he presents himself in every interview with the same script: “there is no capacity to increase wages”, he says, but there is capacity to “bonus” income. What is this if not a confession that they can pay more, but they do not want to do it under the figure of wages because that implies recognizing rights, seniority, benefits and contractual benefits?
But Roig goes further. With the arrogance of those who believe they have the absolute truth, he affirms: “to increase only 10 dollars with the law of retroactive calculation of social benefits that we have today is unaffordable”. Unpayable? for whom, Mr. Roig? for the businessmen who have reported historical profits while their workers survive with incomes that are not even enough for a tiny part of the food basket?
And then, the trap reveals itself: you have to propose them something that in exchange for having them 4 years without salary, you already have a bonus that compensates them, and then let’s start with a new system. Translation: accept a crumb now, sign over their benefits, and then we’ll see. This is not a proposal, it is blackmail. It is the same employer who, in the face of the worker’s need, offers him an “arrangement” that always ends up benefiting those who have the economic power.
Pocket economists: when numbers are made up to justify injustice
Behind the businessman come the economists. Those who today appear on radio and television with graphs and figures that only they understand, but who always come to the same conclusion that -supposedly- there is no money for the workers.
We are told that with… “these numbers of workers and pensioners, there is no income that allows the state to pay a decent salary”. Curiously, those same economists -paid by the big companies- are the ones who carry out the studies that allow the bosses to adjust the prices of their products every day to protect themselves from inflation. The same inflation they feed with their speculation. The same inflation they use as an excuse to deny us a raise.
And while workers cannot adjust their salaries to protect their purchasing power, these “experts” propose with total levity that the minimum wage be set at $100 and pensions between $50 and $80, when the food basket for a family of four is around $600 and the basic food basket is twice that amount. Of course they do. What happens is that the mathematics they are interested in is that of their cash register and that of their clients, not that of the workers.
The mirage of “tripartite dialogue” and the Workers’ Constituent Assembly: more excuses, fewer solutions
The employers’ sector insists that “the only one who has the power to make the minimum increase is the President of the Republic”. An elegant way to wash their hands while they continue to accumulate profits. But let’s not fool ourselves: they have the capacity to increase wages in their companies, to negotiate fairer collective bargaining agreements, to recognize unions and to sit down to discuss without preconditions. They do not do so because they are not interested and they see it as convenient for their profit motive.
On the other hand, from the State -with a president in charge who pretends to justify herself together with the businessmen- there is talk of a “Workers’ Constituent” without clearly explaining what they want to do with the law. More excuses. More procrastination. Meanwhile, the worker continues to wait, subjected to the same super-exploitation and misery.
And in the midst of this farce, the “servile workers’ centers” act, which instead of defending the rights won with blood and struggle, lend themselves to the media show to validate a discourse that does not represent the working base.
Sanctions: the perfect excuse for a crisis that has multiple perpetrators
We cannot fail to point out the hypocrisy of those who today use sanctions as the only justification for the crisis. They say that sanctions impede economic development and that is why there are no living wages. But they omit to say that wage degradation began before the sanctions. They omit that the industrial park was devastated by corruption and mismanagement, that the government assumed policies that favored economic concentration, that there were sectors that got rich with the oil rent while the majority got poorer. They pass by with dissimulation in the face of the evidence of a continuous embezzlement of the nation by the bureaucratic and entrepreneurial castes, which by the smallest measure amounts to 500 billion dollars in two decades. The resources of corruption, with which they grossly enriched themselves, would be enough to restore years of stolen salaries and we would have to audit, locate and confiscate those who stole it, to invest it and distribute it to the service of the Venezuelan people.
And yes, sanctions exist and have caused damage. But it is also true that the Venezuelan government, with its anti-democratic character -evidenced in the disregard of the National Assembly elected in 2015, in the 2024 presidential elections, in the persecution of union leaders and other serious authoritarian behaviors-, provided the perfect excuses for those coercive instruments to be applied.
The uncomfortable truth is that both the government, which has been raging against the workers, and the businessmen who have exploited them to the limit, share responsibility for the wage debacle we are living through. And now, instead of assuming their part, they pretend that the working class continues paying the entire bill with the delivery of their social benefits, when they benefited from the imposition of the “zero” salary, the lowest in the world (in violation of Art. 91 CRBV) and the free labor with “zero” labor cost, thanks to the imposition of a system that borders on semi-slavery or modern slavery. An immense debt and labor liability that they do not recognize.
The other thing they do not say, when they talk about “economic growth” and “increased productivity”, is that they are basing all this on unpaid work, on extreme labor flexibilization.
Nor do they say that the oil revenues have been ceded and are being administered by a foreign power (with the Trump government) while the workers do not see or feel those revenues. They are stripping us of everything and are looking for any excuse to manipulate and prevent there from being a struggle.
The war on unions: when silencing the worker is part of the plan
Nobody talks about this in the “dispassionate” interviews given by Jorge Roig, promoted by the employers. But it is a fact: while they ask us for “dialogue” and “flexibility”, they persecute the workers’ representatives who offer any resistance and demand labor rights. And this is done with the complicity of both the government (the outgoing and the supposedly transitional) and the employers.
They attack the unions, repress their leaders, judicialize their struggles, impose judicial terrorism, divide the workers’ movement with parallel structures. Why? Because they know that an organized worker is a worker who can dismantle the deceptions, who can develop the capacity for combative mobilization, who can disclose production data, who can demand access to the real profits of the companies, who can negotiate face to face with the employer (be it the State or the private sector).
The employers do not want strong unions. They want isolated workers, uninformed, confused, manipulated by the parties of the privileged leaderships, with no capacity to exert pressure? That is why they celebrate when the media gives them space to repeat their discourse without counterweight. That is why they insist that the reform of the law is “technical” and “not ideological”. Because they know that a labor law and constitutional rights without strong and mobilized unions to defend them, rot like a dead letter.
MESSAGE TO THE WORKERS OF VENEZUELA:
Partners:
We have heard enough. We have heard businessmen say that there is no money for our salaries while they adjust prices every day. We have heard the economists say that we have to “reform the structure” while they receive juicy checks for making up the reality. We have heard the servile leaders repeat like parrots the bosses’ slogans. We have heard the government invent a “Workers’ Constituent” without telling us clearly what they want to do with our gains.
Enough is enough!
We will not allow them to continue taking us for a ride. We will not allow that with the excuse of “financial viability” they give us bonuses that are miserable crumbs while they strip us of our constitutional salary and our social benefits. We will not accept that they continue ignoring Article 91 CRBV nor that they take away Article 122 of the LOTTT, conquered with struggles that we will not forget.
The same people who for 12 years have kept us with starvation wages, the same people who have used hyperinflation as a whip against our income, the same people who today go on television in suits and ties to tell us that “we must be realistic”, are responsible for our current situation.
It is time to wake up, organize ourselves and fight hard.
There are no shortcuts. There are no “magic dialogues” or “technical tables” to replace the organized strength of the workers. The only way to defend our wages and benefits is through organization, union unity, conscious mobilization and the frontal struggle to recover rights and against any attempt to roll back.
We cannot remain divided. Nor can we continue to allow ourselves to be infiltrated by the operators of the political parties of the businessmen or those of the bureaucratic regime under the tutelage of the bureaucracy. We cannot continue to believe that some “good businessman” or some “enlightened official” is going to give us what is rightfully ours. Our rights are not negotiable, they are won with organization and struggle.
We reject any reform that seeks to worsen our conditions. We cling to the constitutional principle of progressive labor rights. We demand:
1. The defense of Article 91 of the Constitution, which enshrines a fair and sufficient salary.
2. The defense of Article 122 of the LOTTT, which guarantees the calculation of benefits based on the last full salary.
3. Respect for freedom of association and the cessation of persecution of labor leaders.
4. The installation of real collective bargaining tables, without preconditions, with transparent financial information and with genuine union participation.
A call for unity and militant action
Comrades: the scenario is not new. We have faced greater adversities. We have resisted hyperinflation, repression, abandonment, forced diaspora. But we are still here. Because the Venezuelan working class has a strength that neither businessmen nor authoritarian governments have been able to bend.
Today, in the face of this new onslaught against our rights, the response must be one: organization, mobilization, struggle.
No more speeches that divide. No more leaders who sit at tables to hand over what does not belong to them. No more economists who defend their bosses instead of defending the people.
The working class, united, will never be defeated!
Not one step back in what has been conquered!
Wages are defended, benefits are not negotiated!
For decent work, for a Venezuela with social justice!
Oil revenues for the workers and the Venezuelan people, not for the elites and for a foreign power with its transnationals!
Let us forge a class-conscious and militant union movement, independent of the corrupt and exploitative leaderships, to assert the rights of those of us who live from our work and not from the work of others!
*JeanMendoza is a union leader, General Secretary of SITRAEMAS, and a member of Marea Socialista, who is being prosecuted for what is considered in the labor movement as a false criminal charge of “incitement to hatred” brought by the transnational MASISA, used to prevent him from exercising his union functions and defending the lumber workers. There is the perception that the judicial system of the authoritarian regime has lent itself to this and the transnational company uses repressive and anti-democratic laws such as the hateful Hate Law, while continuing to violate the rights of Venezuelan workers in the sector. By reading this article we ask for support for the demand of #AbsoluciónDeJeanMendoza through messages on social networks.
