Venezuela’s Worker Control Movement

Description

EWAN ROBERTSON:

"the experience of worker control in the Grafitos factory is one of a number of worker control experiments across Venezuela. This article investigates the development of this movement in recent years, in particular through the Plan Socialist Guayana, and what Venezuela's experience of worker control means for the Bolivarian revolution and radical social change more generally.

The worker control movement forms one of the most radical social movements in the Venezuela, pushing for a transformation of the existing mode of production and class relations, the division and hierarchy of labour, and decision-making within the economy. Interestingly, the movement has emerged as a political force later on during Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, the process of social, political and economic change led by President Hugo Chavez since his election in December 1998. The contemporary worker control movement has its beginnings in the oil lockout December 2002 - January 2003, when bosses tried to shut down the country’s oil industry and economy in order to oust Chavez from power, after a failed coup d’état in April 2002. This attempt at economic sabotage, while causing huge damage to the economy, failed when workers in various industries, including oil, temporarily took over the running of factories in a bid to keep the economy moving and maintain Chavez in power.

In 2005 the first worker controlled factories came into being when the Chavez government expropriated paper factory Invepal and valve factory Inveval in January and April of that year respectively, after workers launched occupations against the former owners. The factories were established in “co-management” with the state, whereby workers owned 49% and the state 51% of the factory and administration was shared between the two. Of the two factories, Inveval developed the deepest worker participation, with decisions made in weekly worker assemblies and a factory council formed in January 2007.[ii]

Key to this process was the relationship between the government and workers struggling for worker control. In 2005 President Hugo Chavez began to promote the idea of worker control as a means of recovering and putting into productivity factories closed by recalcitrant members of the business class, launching his call “company closed: company occupied”. Meanwhile the government’s labour ministry supported the organisation that year of the first “Latin American Meeting of Recovered Companies”.[iii] This was part of a left-turn by the Bolivarian movement after successfully defeating numerous destabilisation attempts by the country’s right-wing opposition, with Chavez announcing in 2005 that the goal of the Bolivarian revolution was the construction of socialism. His government then set about nationalising strategic sectors of the economy such as telecommunications, energy, and food supply chains, and promoting grassroots organisation through communal councils among other mechanisms of participation.

From 2005 a range of factories have been occupied and put beneath various forms of worker control in Venezuela, including state-owned Aluminium factory Alcasa from 2005, Invetex, Central Pío Tamayo, Sideroca, Tomatera, Caisa, Central Cumanacoa (2005/6), Sanitarios de Maracay (2007), Grafitos del Orinoco (2009/10), food chain Friosa (2010), coffee producer Fama de Amerca (2010), and many more. Not every model established since 2005 has remain intact and the process has been fluid and at times uneven, yet the general trend has been a growing number of concrete examples and the popularity of the idea of worker control among Venezuela’s working class. Thus, despite the number of factories under worker control representing only a small part of Venezuela’s economy, by mid-2011 the Bicentenary Front of Companies Under Worker Control (FRETCO) was able to declare: “Currently, the Bolivarian revolution has entered a critical point in which the bourgeoisie has lost control over the exploited. The workers have been acquiring an ever greater level of political consciousness and are organising themselves to respond to the capitalists’ attacks”.[iv]

In their analysis, the FRETCO tie the growth of the worker control movement to the overall fate of the Bolivarian process, arguing:

“We are living in times never before seen in our history. There are factories that have been in the hands of their workers for five years, occupied and operated by them. There aren’t any historical references [in Venezuela] in which this situation has been able to sustain itself for so long without one of its parts being defeated. In other times the bourgeoisie would have used all the power of the state to suppress the worker and grassroots movement”."

Discussion

Intro: the excerpt below refers to Plan Socialist Guayana, a takeover of strategic industries in the region Guyana, sitting alongside the Orinoco River.

EWAN ROBERTSON:

"On the level of political values and ideology, worker’s control is generally held to be opposed to capitalist relations of production. Adarfio declared in May 2010 that the PGS represents a “declaration of principles in the war against capitalism,”[xxv] while former worker-president of CVG Alcasa, Elio Sayago, argues, the PGS involves “a deepening of the search to intervene in the mode of production…aiming to develop productive forces and transform the social relations of production”. This is explicitly promoted in the PGS reports, which advocates workers replacing a hierarchical management model with collective decision-making and ending the division of labour between intellectual/managerial and manual labour positions. Alcasa union activist and safety officer Denny Sucre explained to me that this aims for a situation where “the workers in the company don’t feel like an object, but rather an active subject in decision-making…in control of the productive process, but also the administrative process”.

Part of this project is the attempt to change dominant values from an individualistic to a more cooperative outlook. Sayago states his opinion that collective decision-making helps create a “collective work culture” where workers labour together to produce for the benefit of society. Collective and equal participation also make for better decision making, where “the best actions are decisions taken when you work in a group, with respect and cooperation. This action brings together all the knowledge from all the different variables involved…therefore a better decision will be taken”. [xxvi]

Politically, worker control and the PGS have implications for power relations in the Guayana industries, where a set of vested interests already enjoys economic and political power over the CVG. This includes state bureaucrats and managers in the Guayana industries, the CVG management and Bolivar state governorship, transnational companies who buy primary materials, and a “labour aristocracy” in the union movement. A common argument put forward by workers in favour of worker control is that the PGS “sentences to death” the power of such groups, including according to Adarfio “a labour elite [that] has held crumbs of political power, which it always uses for its individual interests in detriment to the rest of the people”. As such, the PGS is widely seen as initiating a “battle inside the companies,” for the future political and productive development of the industries.[xxvii]

Worker control is also argued as necessary for gearing industry toward producing for social need over private profit. Sayago, Adarfio, and the PGS reports make clear that worker control is linked to reducing or ending the export of primary resources to transnational companies, to instead manufacture primary materials inside Venezuela to produce for domestic needs, from health to housing. It is also sometimes argued that increasing production is not a priority as Venezuela’s primary resources should be conserved, along with controlling energy use and protecting the environment.[xxviii] As such, workers point to concrete successes achieved by the PSG working groups despite opposition from other political sectors to the plan’s implementation. Geanes Córdova, a member of PGS working group 4, explained how the PSG working groups in Sidor dealing with subcontracted labour and energy issues have both introduced successful projects, with the first achieving the incorporation of 6,800 cooperative members onto Sidor’s collective contract and the latter succeeding in constructing two thermoelectric plants that helped solve the nations’ 2009-2010 energy crisis.[xxix] Meanwhile, Denny Sucre described to me how Alcasa was planning to begin producing profiles for housing construction in support of the Venezuelan government’s mass housing building program launched May 2011.[xxx]

It’s worth keeping in mind that workers in favour of the PGS also have differing notions of how radical worker control should be. Lisa Maria, who works in the social development department of Ferrominera, felt that worker control is more of a consultative exercise, “that they [translator: it is assumed that “they” refers to company management or administrative staff] take us into account with decisions they make over investments”.[xxxi] Meanwhile Ruben Dario Morales, of Ferrominera’s legal and community department, argued that the PGS should construct “a new management model where workers can truly participate in the decision-making of the future of our company,” however he also argued that this process “doesn’t have any other objective than guaranteeing the productivity and permanence of this company”.[xxxii]

Other workers, especially those participating more deeply in the design and implementation of the PGS, see worker control of the CVG industries as a more radical project, acting as a step in the construction of socialism and the assuming of political power by the Venezuelan working class. Denny Sucre of Alcasa expressed his opinion that:

“This process has to do with participation in all if its aspects, where involvement doesn’t have limits: it has to break barriers, and go further still, because this process we’re determined to construct… is going to give vanguard signals from Alcasa, from Bolivar state, that yes the workers are capable of going much further than the transformation of productive processes. It’s not just about the transformation of productive processes anymore, but about how the workers also have the power of the state, we’re going to take power”.[xxxiii]

The view that workers are collectively capable of assuming more than just the running of factories was also voiced in Grafitos del Orinoco, with Carlos Becerra stating his hope that the PGS could “be a launching pad in the construction of socialism …to begin to direct the factory and in the not too distant future, direct the state too”.[xxxiv]

There are also arguments posed against both worker control in Venezuela in general, and the PGS in particular. State bureaucrats and managers, and sectors tied to the transnationals and the conservative political opposition, argue that workers don’t have the capability or consciousness to run their own factories. This was even expressed in a limited way by Ferrominera worker Lisa Maria who indicated her opinion that some workers don’t understand what worker control is.[xxxv] A more sophisticated argument made by reformist sectors within the Bolivarian process argues that Venezuela is an oil based economy without a developed working class, and so the Bolivarian project is in fact a “transition” to creating a national bourgeoisie and developing the forces of production. The Bicentenary Front of Companies Under Worker Control (FRETCO) organisation rejects the latter argument as “reactionary, and not revolutionary,” and based on hypocrisy, given that those making such arguments are defending their existing political and economic interests in the state apparatus and actively conspiring to make experiments in worker control fail.[xxxvi]

An argument made by some leftist currents is that worker control as conceived within the PGS is flawed as it is formed in conjunction with the state, given that the influence of the government and state-appointed managers in the industries can lead to a bureaucratisation of moves toward full worker control. When the PGS was launched, Orlando Chirino, a leader of the National Union of Workers (UNETE) union federation, urged workers to fight to make sure nationalised companies don’t continue on as capitalist companies in the hands of the state, and that “worker control is not limited to the workers participating in the election of managers”.[xxxvii]

Advocates of the PGS with whom I spoke to took a pragmatic approach to the issue. Denny Sucre argued that “co-responsibility” with the state is necessary because the CVG industries depend on the state for subsidies and parts, however that “when we reach our production capacity then we will be independent from the state”. In this context, it is worth mentioning that although the PSG project has experienced a complicated and often prejudicial relationship with the Venezuelan state, almost all workers advocating worker control I spoke to (in Sidor, Alcasa, Ferrominera, and Grafitos del Orinoco) were supportive of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. They saw him as backing worker control and the PGS, given his public support of worker control and the PGS project, and concrete actions taken such as in May 2010 to push the plan forward.

A view worth mentioning is that of Damian Prat, a Guayana based-journalist who also writes for Tal Cual, a newspaper associated with the right-wing opposition. In an interview I had with him, he gave voice to criticisms that production and safety records in some CVG industries had not improved or had even worsened under state management, which he argued pointed to the incompetence of the Chavez government. He also dismissed the PGS as a government mechanism “to control the workers, making them believe that now it’s they who govern, to eliminate their labour rights…what a marvel, how are you going to complain [to the state] if you’re the owner of the company?”.[xxxviii]

While Prat’s criticisms of problems in production and management faced by the CVG industries may hold weight, his political analysis of their root cause does not. As member of PGS working group 1 Blanca Garcia points out, those fighting for worker control are themselves critical of the fact that the CVG industries are in a “critical state” of operation. However, Garcia explains that the reasons for this are “political not technical”.[xxxix] To put it another way, the problems within the state industries are not simply due to a bureaucratic form of state management that would be solved by privatisation, as Pratt seems to suggest. Rather, they are rooted in the reality that the CVG industries have become the site of an intense political conflict in which the nature of the Bolivarian revolution and the future of the worker control movement in Guayana are being contested. Furthermore, the way in which vested interests within the Bolivarian camp (in state institutions, the CVG, and the Bolivar state governorship) have tried to prevent the implementation of the PGS makes the notion that the PSG is a government plan to control workers unlikely to say the least." (http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7151)

Conclusion

The course of the struggle for worker control in Venezuela has highlighted important characteristics of the Bolivarian revolution, as well as containing important lessons for movements for radical social change globally.

One of these characteristics is the on-going, and perhaps growing, internal contradiction in the Bolivarian revolution between the bureaucracy and politically reformist elements which, both consciously and unconsciously, act to slow continued social, economic and political transformation, and a more radical wing committed to a deeper process of revolutionary change.

On a positive note, the coming together of the Patriotic Committees in Guayana demonstrated the extent to which grassroots organisations in the region are working together and are able to unite to resist attempts to undermine the Plan Socialist Guayana. That said, these groups were unable to prevent the dismissal of Elio Sayago from Alcasa, showing that the bureaucracy have the power to put the PGS in real danger from being realised.

It is important to point out that the worker control movement is one part of a varied and exciting process underway in Venezuela, encompassing community councils, communes, community media, women’s, LGBT, afro-descendent and indigenous groups, and radical government policies domestically and internationally, from social programs to solidarity-based international alliances such as the ALBA (Alliance for the Bolivarian Peoples of our America). The political spaces available to push the worker control movement forward will be partly determined, not only by workers’ ability to organise and struggle, but also by the general direction the revolution takes in the coming months and years.

Author Steve Ellner has observed how the Bolivarian revolution can be characterised by cycles of radicalisation, often driven in response to successfully fighting off attacks from the opposition.[lxiii] Will a strong election victory for Chavez in October mark a move against internal barriers to further radical transformation in Venezuela? In the election campaign on 26 July, Chavez highlighted his awareness of the problems of bureaucracy in state institutions, when he spoke of the importance of self-criticism and the need to correct existing errors in the revolutionary process. He personally addressed the bureaucracy, saying that “the office, the meetings, the analysis, the air conditioning, the chauffeur and the good salary; that’s not worth anything, what matters is the commitment with the people, that’s why we’re here”.

Finally, by what has been achieved so far, Venezuela’s worker control movement demonstrates to the world that workers can indeed collectively self-manage their factories and workplaces, and that capitalist hierarchies and divisions of labour are not the only, nor best, way of organising economic life. By running production in a collectively democratic manner, workers’ alienation from their labour and the unfair distribution of produced resources can be overcome, while leading to the greater education and consciousness of workers. Such a model can also benefit society as a whole, as production is geared toward the needs of society and not profit for capitalists, and lays the basis for deeper economic and social transformation. In the context of austerity being imposed by an elite upon peoples across Europe and North America as a result of the latest crisis of capitalism, worker control in Venezuela is another example of not only how another, better, world is possible, but also what that world could look like." (http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7151)