Gustavo Martínez participated in the March 12 workers’ march, which presented a Statement of Demands to the National Assembly. He collaborated as moderator of the speaking rights at the pre-departure event held at the Plaza Morelos in Caracas. Mr. Martinez is part of the action unity space known as Encuentro Nacional en Defensa e los Derechos del Pueblo (National Meeting in Defense of the People’s Rights). The leader, a trade unionist dismissed from the coffee sector, is national coordinator of Marea Socialista, one of the political organizations linked to the workers’ movement, which participates in the Encounter with the PCV, the PPT-APR, the PSL, the LTS and Revolucion Comunista.
The march was attended by labor organizations which have subscribed to a National Sheet of Demands of the Workers, introduced in the Ministry of Labor and the inspectorates. Among its main points, this document demands that salaries be increased to the level of the cost of the basic food basket, as provided for in the Constitution. It also demands that pensions be increased. It opposes plans to downgrade the right to social benefits. It defends the resumption of the discussion of collective bargaining agreements. It calls for the elimination of anti-worker instructions and memoranda (that of ONAPRE and memo 2792). It also seeks the recovery of union rights and calls for the government to release labor activists and trade unionists who remain imprisoned for fighting.
In his speeches and in some videos disseminated through social networks, Gustavo Martinez makes an assessment of the march:
He considers that the march was a success. He qualifies the march as very positive, highlighting that it achieved its goal of reaching from Plaza Morelos to the National Assembly, in spite of police attempts to stop it. He highlights the unitary character of the mobilization; the great participation and unity of the workers during the activity. He denounces the government sabotage, which consisted in the call for parallel activities in the same place, with metal barriers to close the way, platforms and thunderous sound, in addition to police blockades. The sabotaging sound, with an extreme volume next to Plaza Morelos and at the corner of the National Assembly, was evidently intended to dull the speeches of the leaders and make them inaudible to the public. However, the march managed to overcome all the obstacles and arrived at the National Assembly to be received by a commission.
Martinez denies certain spokespersons who affirmed that there would not be a list of demands, clarifying that the mobilization was based on the document introduced on February 26, which demands the recovery of salaries, social benefits and collective bargaining agreements. He questions the intervention of a leader who went viral with an irony referring to the fact that the workers wanted “luxurious vans” like the ones that the deputies have or to live like them in Las Mercedes. Martínez affirms that this distorts the purpose of the struggle, since these luxuries come from corruption and the money that should be destined to salaries and what the workers are asking for is not that but their just demands contained in the list of demands.
Martínez spoke of proposals and the future of the struggle, which must have a plan discussed from the rank and file: He maintains that in order to defeat the current economic policy a powerful national mobilization is necessary. He proposes the transformation of the trade union model, recovering the assemblies, creating conflict committees in each workplace and betting on a democratic trade unionism that consults the rank and file.
He concluded by referring to workers’ autonomy, in the sense that the recovery of rights depends exclusively on the workers’ own organization and strength.
