Venezuela: Union activists join the May 1st Union and Class-Based Movement

Unity of Labor Activists and Solidarity Action with the Working Class

The official launch of the “May 1” Trade Union, Class-Based, and Labor Activist Movement took place early on Wednesday, June 3, in Cabo, Caracas, bringing together union leaders and activists from the labor movement across various sectors and organizations.

Although this new coalition is a relatively recent development as a collective space, it actually emerged as the result of years of joint struggle, mobilization, and coordinated resistance in defense of the rights historically taken away from the Venezuelan working class, as explained by its own spokespersons in videos accompanying this press release.

The launch included the reading of a key document that summarizes the programmatic and methodological framework—which encompasses the movement’s principles and objectives—and that will guide its operations. Through this manifesto and statements by several of its members, the group outlined its core objectives in light of the current landscape defining the situation of the working class, as well as the direction of activism and workers’ struggles in the country.

Unit Against Austerity and Precarization

Spokespersons for the May 1st Movement issued an urgent call to workers to take more decisive organizational steps in the face of the enormous challenge they face as a class: to reclaim the labor rights they had won and were later stripped of, as well as to establish organizational structures for mobilization.

They denounced the fact that the national government, in alliance with private employers, is maintaining and intensifying a “brutal economic austerity program” that has plunged the general population into a state of absolute precariousness.

Two Strategic Obstacles: Neocolonialism and Union Bureaucracy

The new labor platform highlighted two strategic issues that the working class cannot avoid in the current situation:

The spokespeople emphasized that, following the events of January 3 involving the U.S. military incursion, the country has been reduced to a “neocolonial” situation. They denounced the fact that the fruits of Venezuelan labor are being deposited and managed in financial accounts in the United States itself, which constitutes a geopolitical factor that directly impacts any current struggle for justice.

They raised the need for workers at the grassroots level to call out the union bureaucracies and the central organizations that divide their struggles and fragment the necessary unity. They asserted that the actions of these groups have become a “burden” that prevents the labor movement from developing a genuine class-based leadership capable of effectively confronting both public and private employers, whether domestic or foreign.

Persecuted and Struggling Leadership

This labor activism network brings together prominent leaders and activists from different regions and sectors across the country. Among them was Jean Mendoza, a well-known leader of the Masisa workers’ union in Guayana, who is currently facing a labor lawsuit in the courts of Puerto Ordaz (the company accuses him of “inciting hatred” for leading the struggle in defense of labor rights), which they describe as a clear attempt by management to criminalize protest and union activity.

This space also features William Prieto, a union leader who is waging a determined legal and political battle against his unjustified dismissal by FOGADE. Other well-known labor activists promoting this movement include Zuleika Matamoros, Gustavo Martínez Rubio, and Jesús Superlano, to name just a few of those who participated in the event launching this united front.

The May 1st Trade Union and Class-Based Movement was thus founded “with the firm conviction of contributing to the rebuilding of the Venezuelan labor movement based on the principles of independence, workers’ democracy, and an uncompromising struggle for the dignity of labor,” as they stated at the event that marked its launch.

Below are videos featuring statements from the spokesperson for this alliance of activists fighting for the rights of the working class:

Gustavo Martínez: