Late on Monday, January 17, our comrades of Marea Socialista (MS), the Venezuelan section of the ISL, reported that our comrade and representative of the workers of the transnational MASISA in Guayana, Jean Mendoza, who had been detained last weekend, was released after his presentation in the Puerto Ordaz criminal courts, but with a precautionary measure and not with full freedom.
Since the early hours of yesterday morning, a contingent of MASISA workers gathered and waited all day before the headquarters of the tribunal in Alta Vista, Puerto Ordaz, pressing for the release of the detainee, their labor representative and prevention delegate elected by the MASISA workers.
As our comrades point out, the Chilean transnational, which pays Venezuelan lumber workers a tiny part of the salary they pay in Chile, Peru, Mexico or Argentina, thanks to the salary precariousness policies applied by the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, used a reactionary law approved by the recently closed National Constituent Assembly, created by the PSUV, which allows the demands and claims of labor, popular and critical left activists to be incriminated as “incitement to hatred,” in addition to being used politically against the opposition. Now, with the “Law Against Hate,” criticism of the government or demands against companies for violation of labor rights, instead of being processed properly in labor courts, become criminal charges that allow workers to be imprisoned for up to 10 years as common criminals.
The release under precautionary measure of Jean Mendoza is seen as a victory of the pressure of the mobilization of his MASISA coworkerse and of the workers’ solidarity in Guayana, as well as of the national solidarity of union sectors, popular activists and political currents, such as those who gathered yesterday in Caracas in Parque Carabobo to protest in front of the Prosecutor’s Office (national headquarters of the Public Ministry). But international solidarity also stands out, promoted fundamentally by organizations of the revolutionary left that are part of the International Socialist League (ISL) in many countries of the world.
The precautionary measure that conditions labor leader Jean Mendoza´s freedom, as explained by one of his defense attorneys, imposes on him a regime of presentation before the courts every 30 days, the prohibition of leaving the country and also includes prohibitions related to the use of social networks and electronic media.
Although Mendoza obtains an important partial victory, recovering his freedom of movement, by no longer being held in the detention center, the limitations to which he will be subjected represent a reduction of his rights and give his employer an advantage, while at the same time hindering the exercise of Jean’s representation in favor of the workers. The result towards which the courts are moving continues to be unfavorable to the workers and complacent with the transnational. That is to say, it is a measure that does not restore the rights of the labor leader but constrains him and thereby helps the company to neutralize the worker, something that very well portrays the meaning of class “justice,” the orientation of the bourgeois judicial system.
For now, then, the struggle is refocused towards the goal of achieving #LibertadPlenaParaJeanMendoza (Full Freedom For Jean Mendoza) in addition to continuing to accompany the workers in their wage claims and for the exercise of their union rights. Along with this grows the need felt by the workers to demand the repeal of the “Law Against Hate” (used against the labor movement) and an end to the criminalization of the labor struggle.
The workers and the solidarity movements will hold assessment meetings of this workers’ struggle and its results, to continue strengthening the organization and unity of the working class in defense of its rights. This commitment is fully assumed by those of us who form part of the International Socialist League.
- This article was modified based on the publication of aporrea.org (https://www.aporrea.org/trabajadores/n370790.html)