By CNCTL Assembly
Automatically translated by AI.
We, Venezuelan citizens duly identified below (name, surname, identity card), acting on behalf of the following trade union organizations, labor movements and associations of retirees and pensioners that legitimately operate in the national territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela: Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela(CTV), Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela(CUTV), Central Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNETE), Confederación Sindicatos Autónomos de Venezuela (CODESA), Central de Trabajadores Alianza Sindical Independiente (ASI), Confederación General de Trabajadores (CGT), Asociación de Profesores de la Universidad Central de Venezuela (APUCV), Colegio de Enfermería del DC, Federación de Trabajadores Sindicalizados de la FETRASINED), Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Universidad Central de Venezuela (SINATRAUCV), Federación de Trabajadores Universitarios (FETRASUV), Comité Nacional Educación de Conflicto de Trabajadores en Lucha, Unión Nacional Acción Social, Sindical y Gremial del Zulia (UNASSG), Alianza Social de Trabadores de Aragua (ASTA), Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Educación Pública, Privada y Similares del Estado Apure (SUTEPPS), Asociación de Profesionales Universitarios en Funciones Administrativas y Técnicas de la UCV (APUFAT), FETRACARABOBO, Colegio de Bioanalistas del Estado Sucre, Sindicato Único de Empleados y Obreros Electricistas y Conexos del Estado Cojedes (SUDEOECEC), Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Educación del Estado Portuguesa (SITE-FETRASINED), Association of Teachers of UPEL Maracay (APROUPEL-Maracay), Bolivarian Union of Employees of the Municipality of Boconó (SIBOEMBO), Union of Workers “Eusebio Baptista de la Alcaldía de Boconó (SITTEBAMB), Movimiento 23 BAUXILUM, Sindicato de Obreros Alcaldía de Caracas (SUOMGIA DCML), Coordinadora de Pensionados y Jubilados de Venezuela (COPENJUVE), Asociación de Educadores Jubilados y Pensionados Unidos de la Región Capital (ASOCEJUPRC), Coalición Magisterial del Estado Sucre (Sinvema, Simproted, Suma, Fenatev), Asociación de Profesores de la Universidad Simón Bolívar del Litoral (APUSB), Sindicato de Trabadores de la Educación de Barinas (SINDITEBA-FENATEV), Sindicato de Profesionales de la Docencia-Colegio de Profesores de Yaracuy (SINPRODO-CPV), Sindicato de Empleados de la Fundación Instituto de Ingeniería (SEFII), Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Salud del Distrito Capital (SIRTRA-SALUD DC), Movimiento de Educadores Simón Rodríguez (MESR), Sindicato de Obreros Alcaldía de Caracas (SUOMGIA DCML), Comité de Derechos Humanos para la Defensa de los Pensionados, Jubilados, Personas Adultas y Personas con Discapacidad (El COMITÉ), Asociación de Educadores Jubilados y Pensionados Unidos del Estado Aragua, Movimiento Pedagógico REDEDUCADORES, Frente Nacional de Lucha de la Clase Trabajadora (FNLCT), Movimiento de Educadores Unidos Por Venezuela (MEUPV), Plataforma Ciudadana, por la Defensa de la Constitución, Vanguardia Laboral (VL), Sindicato Único de Empleados de los Poderes Públicos del Ejecutivo del Estado Sucre (SUEPPLES), Unión de Trabajadores Revolucionarios (UTR), Colegio de Economistas del Estado Sucre, Comité de Conflicto de la Universidad de Oriente, Organización de Hombres por la Equidad y la Igualdad, Corriente Sindical Palabra Obrera, Secretaría de Organización de la Asociación de Trabajadores de la Universidad Experimental de Guayana (ATAUNEG), Coordinadora de Trabajadores en Lucha de los Altos Mirandinos (CTLAM), Coordinadora Metropolitana de Trabajadores en Lucha (CMTL). National Committee of Workers in Struggle (CNTL); all subscribers of the Unitary Agreement of Workers for the Rescue of Wages, Pensions and Union Freedom, we constitute ourselves as an Assembly of Citizens, based on Article 70 of the National Constitution, which defines the assemblies of citizens as one of the means of participation and protagonism of the people in the exercise of their sovereignty, whose decisions are binding; and, in exercise of the provisions of Article 5 of the Constitution, specifically in its first part “Sovereignty resides non-transferably in the people, who exercise it directly in the manner provided for in this Constitution and in the law (…). The organs of the State emanate from the sovereignty of the people and are subject to it”; for the purpose of preparing, approving and submitting the present Statement of Legitimate Demands of Venezuelan Workers (hereinafter referred to as Statement of Demands) addressed to each of the Public Powers of the Venezuelan State, making use of the provisions of Article 51 of the Constitution and by virtue of the grounds set forth in Article 7 thereof “The Constitution is the supreme rule and the basis of the legal system. All persons and the bodies exercising the Public Power are subject to this Constitution.”
Of the Facts
Since 2013 itself, the economic and labor policies implemented by the National Government have been progressively destroying the salary of active workers and the pensions of our pensioners and retirees, eroding the saving capacity of the working family and taking us to levels of misery, affecting the health, food, security and dignity of millions of men and women of the working people.
The aggressive policy of dismantling the rights of the Venezuelan workers is of long standing, but here we mean the monetary reconversions of August 2018 and October 2021, with which 11 zeros were eliminated from the national currency, without establishing any protection or compensation for the drastic reduction of the amounts in bolivars of salaries, pensions, social benefits, savings funds and social security funds, among others. At the same time, salary conditions began to be made more flexible in favor of the employer, and at the same time the tax burden of the private sector importing finished products was eliminated, to the point of exempting them from a large part of the taxes, which contributed to the dismantling of national production.
In October 2018, the National Government, through its Minister of Labor, propitiated Memorandum-Circular 2792, which allowed the dismantling of the contractual conquests in wage matters in both the private and public sectors, which also meant the paralyzation of the discussions of collective bargaining agreements in the public sector. Thus we saw how between the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, a number of large private companies managed to sign acts, with the facilitation of authorities of the Ministry of Popular Power of the Social Process of Labor (MPPPST), to impose a fraudulent procedure in the irregular application of 148 of the LOTTT, with the aim of disapplying economic clauses of the collective contracts in force and reducing personnel through the subterfuge of massive suspensions, which ended in simulated layoffs and the subsequent hiring of outsourced and precarious personnel. In the same way, the public administration only signed agreements that gradually dismantled the workers’ gains.
In March 2022, the National Executive imposed an Instruction of the National Budget Office (ONAPRE), with guidelines so that in the public sector the gains achieved in the different collective bargaining agreements would not be applied, but rather a remuneration table dictated discretionally by the Government, meaning the employers’ evasion of a large part of the contractual rights of the personnel in the service of the Venezuelan State.
The legal minimum salary and the Social Security pension were frozen as of March 2022 at Bs. 130 or 0.30 cents of a dollar per month as of this date. The legal concept of salary has been replaced by the denomination of “integral income”, which contains a fraud to the labor legislation through the payment of bonuses that have no incidence in the calculation of benefits, vacations, profits or Christmas bonuses, pensions, social security; thus destroying the salary basis for the calculation of legal and contractual labor indemnities.
Likewise, the Organic Law of the Special Economic Zones is approved during 2022, only to favor private investments, particularly foreign investments, allowing a special regime without the application of the obligations established in the Venezuelan labor legislation, in addition to tax privileges and other benefits for investors.
In many workplaces, mostly in the commerce and agri-food industries, the imposition of labor relations without rights, in precarious conditions and with authoritarian practices that mistreat and humiliate the personnel has been “normalized”, in these workplaces, working hours are imposed without limits, health and safety standards are not respected, unionization and the election of prevention delegates are prohibited, except in some cases with elections organized by the employers, labor immobility is violated and in many cases the public forces are used to intimidate, repress and arrest those who complain or try to organize. All of the above takes place with total impunity.
Today, as never before, all the organs of the Venezuelan State are aligned in the establishment of a new paradigm in labor relations, devoid of the rights and protection mechanisms established in the Constitution and in the labor legislation. The rulings of the Judiciary, far from correcting the situation and repairing those affected, end up strengthening the unconstitutional measures, legitimizing labor defenselessness before the employers and the government.
In the same way, a systematic violation of the freedom of association has been developed, from different instances of the State, with obstructions and obstacles that limit or prevent the free exercise of union activity, which began a year after the approval of the LOTTT, with the interference of the MPPPST through the National Registry of Union Organizations (RNOS) and in agreement with the National Electoral Council. The attacks of the State against the independent and autonomous union movement were escalating, reaching the development of persecutions and criminalization of the labor struggle and union activism, which has produced hundreds of irregular arrests and judicial processes of workers and unionists, throughout the administration of Nicolás Maduro.
Among the most recent anti-union practices are: on the one hand, the exclusion of legally constituted trade union centers in Venezuela (such as the CUTV, UNETE and CODESA) and of important non-confederate organizations, from the consultation and dialogue processes carried out based on obligations established in the LOTTT and in international labor agreements ratified by the Republic; and on the other hand, the imposition by the National Executive, the leadership of its political party (the PSUV) and the governmental trade union center (the CBST), of a fraudulent, antidemocratic and illegal “Workers’ Constituent” or “Trade Union Constituent” to finish subordinating the trade union movement, stripping it of the right to collective bargaining, leaving the workers without effective legal defense against the constant and persistent aggressions of both public and private employers.
As a consequence of the whole process of confiscation of labor rights we have:
– That more than 60% of the labor force is informal and lacks decent income or social protection, while only 38% sustains national economic activity, aggravated by forced migration and the destruction of the productive apparatus.
– Approximately 99% of what workers receive for the sale of their labor force is not considered wages.
– That the official discourse on “economic growth” contrasts with the systematic refusal to
increase wages, restore rights or guarantee decent working conditions.
– That the right to strike is practically outlawed in Venezuela, given the insurmountable obstacles established in the LOTTT and various legal and administrative mechanisms that make it unfeasible to carry out legal strikes in our country, in addition to the repressive and criminalizing policies exercised against labor struggles.
– It is estimated that by the year 2025 the number of workers killed by occupational accidents in Venezuela will be 650. This is an unfortunate, unofficial record figure, due to the opacity and lack of information maintained by INPSASEL regarding the situation of occupational accidents and occupational diseases.
– That at present, more than 20 union leaders are deprived of their freedom, with violations to due process, including the General Secretary in charge of the CTV, comrade José Elías Torres and the President of Fetraconstrucción, William Lizardo, both in a situation of forced disappearance since the end of November 2025.
Of Law
The labor policy of the Venezuelan State violates international labor standards, constitutional precepts on labor matters and the rights established in the (LOTTT) and in the (LOPCYMAT); it has incurred in flagrant violations of the conventions established with the ILO: 95 (on wage protection), 26 (method for fixing the minimum wage), 100 (on equal pay), 87 (on freedom of association and the right to organize), 98 (collective bargaining and freedom of association), 144 (tripartite consultation), 111 (on discrimination, in employment and occupation), 155 (on safety and health of workers). Nor has it complied with the recommendations established by the ILO Commission of Inquiry in 2019, on the violated international labor conventions, with emphasis on guaranteeing freedom of association, the cessation of repression and the granting of full freedom for all imprisoned workers and union leaders, repealing norms that obstruct or limit free unionization and the right to strike, carrying out effective consultation with union actors and establishing a true social dialogue with genuine participation of the parties.
Finally, the constitutional principles that define the democratic and social State of Law and Justice and that establish the values of its legal system and its essential purposes (Articles 2 and 3) are being violated; all the articles of Chapter V of the Social and Family Rights, such as: Articles 75 (protection of families); 78 (protection of children and adolescents); 79 (training and access to the first job for young people); 80 (full rights and guarantees for the elderly); 81 (access to appropriate and dignified employment for people with disabilities); 83, 84, 85 and 86 (right to health and social security for everyone); 87 (right to work for a dignified existence, guarantee of safety, hygiene and working conditions); 88 (equality and equity at work for men and women, right to social security for housewives); 89 (guiding principles in labor law: intangibility and progressivity, prevalence of reality over forms and appearances, unrenounceability, application of the most favorable norm, unconstitutional acts of the employer are void, prohibition of all types of discrimination, protection of adolescents against economic and social exploitation); 90 (on the limitations of the working day); 91 (sufficient salary to cover needs of the worker and his family, guarantee of a minimum living wage to be adjusted each year having as one of the references the cost of the basic basket of goods); 92 (social benefits that reward length of service and provide protection in case of dismissal); 93 (job stability); 94 (prohibition of simulation and fraud in labor relations); 95 (right to unionization and freedom of association); 96 (right to collective bargaining); 97 (right to strike for workers in the public and private sectors).
Likewise, they violate principles established in the (LOTTT): Article 2; the precepts regarding wages, established in Articles 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 109, 110, 111, 117, 118, 121, 122 and 129; on social benefits: 141, 143; on protection of the social labor process: 148; the norms referring to working conditions, particularly articles: 156 (decent and safe conditions); 157 (agreed working conditions); 159 (provision of decent housing); 160 (provision of transportation); 163 (provision of health centers); 164 and 166 (labor harassment); on working hours: 173, 174, 178. Regarding freedom of association, they violate the norms enshrined in articles 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 357, 358, 362, 363, 366, 387, 393, 395, 396. Regarding violations to union privilege and labor immobility: 418, 419, 420, 422. Regarding the right to collective bargaining: 431, 432, 434, 435, 437.
On the other hand, there are aspects in the LOTTT that are inconsistent with some constitutional principles and with other norms of the LOTTT itself, such as the cases of article 402 (prohibition to the boards of directors with an expired term to collectively represent the workers); and the articles that make the exercise of the right to strike practically unfeasible: 476 and 484 (prior admission of the conflict list and unilateral power of the Ministry of Labor to limit the effective exercise of the strike in sectors considered “essential”).
Petitions and Demands
Based on the foregoing legal and factual allegations, we, the undersigned, request and demand the following:
To reestablish the value of the labor force, through the implementation of a wage policy based on the provisions of Article 91 of the Constitution and Article 104 of the LOTTT. Consequently: to define a minimum salary and a minimum pension that allows covering the cost of the basic family basket or close to it; to reestablish the concept of salary and therefore to salaryize all remunerations fraudulently considered “bonuses” or “integral income”, as established in 104 of the LOTTT, including the so-called “economic war bonus or income”, therefore they will be integrated to the calculation basis of all indemnifications and concepts, legal and contractual, that use the salary as a basis to determine their respective amounts.
To reestablish the discussions of the collective bargaining agreements unilaterally paralyzed by the public and private employers.
3.To grant immediate full freedom for all workers and union leaders deprived of their liberty and to annul the judicial processes to which they are subjected.
To repeal all laws and decrees that establish repressive mechanisms that criminalize the social-labor and union struggle, freedom of expression, peaceful protest and the right to free association, such as: the so-called Law Against Hate; the Simon Bolivar Law and the Decree of External Commotion.
Urgent approval of the General Amnesty Law, so that full liberties are granted to all citizens unjustly detained and judicially prosecuted for their labor struggles, union activities, critical opinions or political militancy.
To annul Memorandum Circular 2792 and to restore to the workers the rights violated in application of this instrument.
Suspend the application of the unconstitutional ONAPRE Instructions and reestablish to the affected workers all rights and benefits lost as a result of the application of such instrument.
To reestablish freedom of association and consequently: to cease all forms of persecution, harassment and criminalization of union activity; to allow the registration of union organizations without political or employer conditioning; to cease immediately the interference of the State and employers in general in the internal life of the union movement, workers will freely determine their union membership; to cease all forms of exclusion and discrimination against any union central, in the processes of consultation and social dialogue.
Cease and void, as unconstitutional, all dismissals for reasons of political and union discrimination. Reinstate in their jobs all workers who have been dismissed directly or indirectly (including forced retirements) for their labor, union and political activism, including social fighters and prevention delegates.
Comply with and enforce compliance with occupational health and safety protection standards.
11.That the Food and Medicine Voucher Law for pensioners and retirees, approved by the NA in April 2016 and endorsed by the Supreme Court of Justice, be complied with.
12.To restore or compensate the economic rights of workers (currently active or not), whose salaries, social benefits and pensions were reduced due to the irresponsible imposition of the monetary reconversions of 2018 and 2021.
To repeal all those norms that obstruct or impede the exercise of the right to legally strike in Venezuela.
14.To reinstate the retroactive payment of pensions to pensioners who are abroad and to guarantee the rights established in articles 80 and 86 of the national constitution.
15.Restore and disburse the money owed to the savings banks of workers, retirees and pensioners of the entire public administration, to which resources have been owed for more than 6 years.
To comply with the provisions of Article 86 of the Constitution, to establish a comprehensive, public, universal and solidary social security system that guarantees health and ensures protection in contingencies of maternity, paternity, illness, disability, invalidity, catastrophic diseases, disability, special needs, occupational hazards, loss of employment, unemployment, old age, widowhood, orphanhood, housing, burdens derived from family life, among other circumstances of social welfare. Consequently, we demand the due application of the Organic Law of the Social Security System approved in 2002 and the creation of the subsystems it orders.
