The “Primero de Mayo” Trade Union and Struggle Movement, which unites leaders and activists who promote the mobilization and organization of the working class and popular sectors to reclaim their rights and freedoms, has published a statement expressing solidarity with the victims of the June 24 earthquakes and setting forth a series of accusations, accompanied by demands on the government, as well as proposals and a call to the Venezuelan working class. Our comrades from Marea Socialista of the ISL are part of this united current. 

Automatically translated by AI.

Below is the full statement:

Statement by the “May Day” Trade Union and Struggle Movement on the National Catastrophe, Internal Plunder, and Surrender to Imperialism

To the Venezuelan workers, to the humble people who are suffering and struggling:

On behalf of the “Primero de Mayo” Trade Union and Struggle Movement, we address the entire working class at this time of profound collective grief. We express our strongest and most heartfelt solidarity with the thousands of families affected by the terrible earthquakes of June 24, which devastated parts of Caracas and struck with even greater force in La Guaira, where, unfortunately, the death toll continues to rise.

However, this natural disaster did not strike a vacuum. It found a people already battered by other man-made “catastrophes”: the anti-worker policies implemented by the government that until recently was led by Nicolás Maduro, and which is now headed by the Rodríguez siblings, Delcy and Jorge, alongside Diosdado Cabello. All of this is reflected in the complete dismantling of the fundamental rights and historic gains that our class achieved after decades of struggle.

The earthquake merely added its own destruction to a reality of widespread suffocation. The government’s response to the emergency has been what it always has been: slow, bureaucratic, and indifferent. This is not merely a chronic lack of preparedness for emergencies, but irrefutable evidence of structural public disinvestment, a health care system in ruins, and a web of real estate corruption —in both the public and private sectors—that allowed buildings to be constructed under substandard conditions, thereby multiplying the human toll.

While the people bury their dead, political leaders reveal their most dehumanizing side, exploiting the tragedy to advance their own agendas. The current government, deepening its stance of submission to the U.S. occupation, has facilitated a growing presence of U.S. military personnel who already control strategic points throughout the country, including Maiquetía International Airport. Donald Trump and his imperialist clique see our misfortune as the perfect opportunity to consolidate their colonial plans of plunder in Venezuela and the region. Added to this is the arrival of a so-called Israeli reconstruction mission—a façade concealing military leaders from one of the world’s most bloodthirsty armies, responsible for the genocide against the Palestinian people.

On the other hand, the leadership of the pro-business opposition offers no viable alternative for the majority of the people. María Corina Machado displays a cynical and unconscionable brand of populism in the face of others’ suffering, claiming that the victims trapped in the rubble are calling for her return, while her followers flock to the U.S. Embassy to beg for immediate elections, driven solely by the desire to elevate her to power. We strongly condemn those who, posing as union leaders, act as agents of these pro-business and colonialist agendas. Their subservience to foreign interests in the midst of this national mourning makes them reprehensible in the eyes of the working class.

The economic reality shows no sign of letting up: the bolívar is plummeting, devaluation is relentlessly destroying us, and labor policies are as devastating as the earthquake itself, deepening our impoverishment and turning us into a semi-slave labor force for the benefit of public and private employers who have enriched themselves by plundering the fruits of our labor. Faced with this scenario, we urge workers and the Venezuelan people to remain vigilant: we cannot allow the government and employers to exploit the confusion and pain of the moment to push through further anti-worker reforms. We denounce the plan they had been developing even before the earthquake to reform the Organic Labor Law (LOTTT), whose real and underlying purpose is to eliminate the actual cost of social benefits, thereby stripping us of our families’ historical legacy.

In the face of official indifference, we salute with deep respect the immense grassroots solidarity that has emerged from the people themselves. It is the workers and residents who, with their own hands, are clearing debris in search of life, and who are managing shelters and collection centers with autonomous dignity. That solidarity among equals and that grassroots self-organization are the true foundation and the path to building a genuine solution to the overall crisis. We rely on no leadership, regardless of political affiliation.

We demand that the national government immediately allocate all of the nation’s resources to efficiently address the emergency: the tireless search for survivors, the urgent reconstruction of the healthcare system, and full compensation for the thousands of families who have lost everything. The money exists, but today it is being siphoned off by imperialism and deposited into its overseas accounts through the plundering of our oil resources. Now more than ever, we demand that these oil revenues be returned to the country immediately. Similarly, it is the State’s inescapable duty to reclaim, demand, and recover the funds withheld from Venezuela by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the gold deposited in England. We insist that, at this moment, the central and paramount task is to address the national emergency with these resources; but to ensure this, workers and the population as a whole must organize ourselves to exercise strict oversight and social control from the grassroots up. We cannot entrust absolutely anything to the corrupt bureaucracy or the rest of the leadership in the management of these funds.

At the same time, the country’s reconstruction necessarily requires the immediate restoration of the minimum wage as a fundamental right that has been taken away from us. We demand strict compliance with Article 91 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (CRBV): a living wage equal to the cost of the basic food basket! Funding for the emergency and household support must come from the profits of those who have historically exploited the working class.

We workers and the working classes have no choice but to think and act for ourselves. Through class solidarity, autonomy, and grassroots self-organization, we must take a leading role from below today for as long as this tragedy lasts. This emergency response, rooted in solidarity, must become the organizational and activist foundation that allows us to build the strength necessary to confront and resolve, with our own hands, all the other political and economic catastrophes that are plaguing us. The way out of this crisis will not come from any pact made at the top; it is a historic task that only we ourselves can achieve through independent mobilization.

Workers’ autonomy and independence against all the leaderships and imperialism!

For national reconstruction from the working-class grassroots!

“May Day” Union and Activist Movement