Venezuela
Venezuela: Struggle in the PSUV -- `If the people don't stand firm, the right will screw it up!'
By Stuart Munckton
May 27, 2008 -- The two Venezuelanalysis.com articles below, by Kiraz Janicke (a member of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau and Venezuelanalysis.com journalist), give a feel for the increasingly intense struggle that is taking place within the Chavista camp.
``Venezuela gets ready to choose candidates for regional elections''
-- http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3487
``Controversy erupts over nominations for PSUV candidacies in Venezuela''
-- http://www.venezuelanalysis. com/news/3494
In fact, as articles from the GLW Caracas bureau among a fair few others have pointed out in recent times, the key struggles in Venezuela are occurring within the Chavista camp — and the outcome of this struggle will play a major role in determining the fate of the Venezuelan revolution.
Prospects for socialist revolution in Venezuela and Latin America -- Celia Hart
Cuban revolutionary Celia Hart addresses the “A World in Revolt'' conference, Toronto, Canada, May 22-25, 2008.
Cuban VP: `Sustainable development requires a revolution in our values'
Address by José Ramón Machado Ventura, First Vice-President of Cuba’s Council of State, at a session on ``Sustainable Development: the Environment, Climate Change and Energy'', during the 5th EU/LAC (European Union/Latin America and Caribbean) summit meeting in Lima, Peru, May 16-17.
Your Excellency:
At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro 16 years ago, Fidel Castro issued a prophetic warning, stating that ``an important biological species is at risk of disappearing as a result of the rapid and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: humanity''.
Time has proven him right.
Let us not mince our words: we won’t attain sustainable development, the negative impacts of climate change will not be halted or reversed, and the environment will not be preserved for future generations, if the irrational patterns of production, distribution and consumption imposed upon us by capitalism prevail. The globalisation of neoliberal policies has drastically exacerbated the crisis.
El movimiento obrero venezolano en la encrucijada
por Kiraz Janicke y Federico Fuentes
Rebelión
Michael A. Lebowitz: Socialism is the future -- Build it now
By Michael A. Lebowitz
Global food crisis: Capitalism, agribusiness and the food sovereignty alternative
By Ian Angus
[Second of two articles. Click here for part one.]
Venezuela's labour movement at the crossroads; Stalin Borges Perez on May Day
See http://www.links.org.au/node/388#comment-527 for a report on the Caracas May Day March.
* * *
Venezuela's labour movement at the crossroads
By Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes
Michael A. Lebowitz: La jornada laboral capitalista y la jornada laboral socialista
By Michael A. Lebowitz
[Translation by J. Duckworth]
Michael A. Lebowitz: May Day -- The capitalist workday, the socialist workday
By Michael A. Lebowitz
April 24, 2008 -- As May Day approaches, there are four things that are worth remembering:
1. For workers, May Day does not celebrate a state holiday or gifts from the state but commemorates the struggle of workers from below.
2. The initial focus of May Day was a struggle for the shorter workday.
3. The struggle for the shorter workday is not an isolated struggle but is the struggle against capitalist exploitation.
International Solidarity Forum resolution: Statement of Solidarity
http://solidarityforum2007.org/?q=node/32
We came and met together from many different countries.
We came because we are some of those who have to struggle.
We have to fight the capitalists. We have to fight and win.
To fight we need to meet, and talk about our problems.
The ways we get defeated, the ways in which we are winning.
We have to talk together about our common struggle:
The issues that unite us, and where we don’t agree.
We need to make a plan that is a clear way forward.
The world is really ours. But capitalists have stolen it.
Venezuela: Sidor nationalisation marks ‘new revolution within revolution’
By Stalin Perez Borges
Introduction by Green Left Weekly:
April 19, 2008 -- Denouncing the “coloniser attitude” and “barbarous exploitation” of workers by the management of the Sidor steel company, Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez announced at 1.30am on April 9 that President Hugo Chavez had decided to nationalise the company.
“This is a government that protects workers and will never take the side of a transnational company”, said Carrizalez.
The decision of the Chavez government to nationalise Sidor has begun the process of returning to state hands one of the most important steel factories of Latin America, located in the heartland of Venezuela’s industrial belt in Guayana.
Sidor was privatised in 1997, one year before Chavez was elected. The major share-holder has been an Argentinean-controlled conglomerate Techint. Since privatisation, the workforce has been slashed from around 15,000 to just over 5000 and the company has used contract labour in violation of a government decree banning the practice.
Venezuela: Unionists debate call for new federation; Chavez sacks labour minister
By Kiraz Janicke
Caracas, April 15, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) -- In a joint press conference with Venezuela's labour minister Jose Ramon Rivero on Sunday, National Assembly deputy and coordinator of the Bolivarian Socialist Workers Force (FSBT), a faction within the National Union of Workers (UNT), announced the formation of a new national union federation and called on unions to disaffiliate from the UNT.
***
STOP PRESS
CARACAS, April 16 (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez named a veteran communist leader as labour minister on Wednesday, days after ordering the nationalisation of a giant steelmaker whose workers are fighting for better pay. The first task facing Roberto Hernandez, a [former] long-term member of the Venezuelan Communist Party, will be to negotiate a new labour contract with the union at the Ternium Sidor steel works.
The appointment was published in the government's official gazette.