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Appeal to US trade unionists on behalf of workers in Venezuela February 26, 2003 Dear sisters and brothers, We appeal to you on behalf of our sisters and brothers in Venezuela. As the movement against war against Iraq explodes around the world and trade unionists in the US join this movement in their own name, we write about another oil-motivated intervention into which the State Department has dragged their unions. We enclose a letter to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney which we are also sending to the ILO protesting their latest implementation of State Department foreign policy, working to defeat a great 'peaceful and democratic revolution' in Venezuela of workers struggling against poverty and exploitation. We also enclose our call to support the women of Venezuela, explaining what they have gained so far from their 'Bolivarian revolution' and what they are doing to defend it. Since John Sweeney became president, there were hopeful indications that the AFL-CIO would finally cut away from its previous endorsement of US government policies which advance US corporate interests - the interests of the employers against working families in other countries. Yet the AFL-CIO (and the ILO) have again been pressed into service to give credibility, resources and support to the corrupt Venezuelan trade union federation CTV*. The leadership of CTV has been central to carrying out a US-orchestrated military coup against the popular elected government of President Chavez and, after he was reinstated by a popular uprising, to inviting US intervention by paralyzing oil production, the Venezuelan people's main source of wealth. Many of us are not in trade unions because we are unwaged or free lance or not unionized: on welfare, living by subsistence farming, working as housewives, domestic workers, in fast food joints, or self-employed as translators or in micro-enterprises . . . But we are all workers, some of whom come from families that fought hard to build the unions, and we know that all our lives are deeply affected by what trade unions win or don't win, and the policies they carry out. With the world poised on a precipice, it is time to break with the tradition that only union members can comment on union policies, especially when such policies are directly affecting the whole working population, in whatever country. As workers, whether waged or unwaged, we can't allow the power, credibility and resources of US unions to be used to scab on others. It is in our interest in every way as the worsening of working conditions in countries in the South can only bring lower wages and even job losses at home - NAFTA has proved that. We hope that you will endorse and circulate our letters. You may be moved also to discuss this with others, and pass a resolution based on this information to protest that in your name - but without your knowledge or consent - the AFL-CIO is undermining the organizations and movement of sisters and brothers in Venezuela. Refusing to allow the unions to back the White House assault on Venezuela is integral to preventing the other slaughter on behalf of oil corporations - the bombing and invasion of Iraq. Both are part of what the US administration itself calls "full spectrum dominance" - a military takeover of the world. Now they have no military rivals. No government can stop them. Only the populations of the world, beginning with the US population, can do that. We must respond now to the call of our sisters and brothers in Venezuela to stop what can be stopped if we all work together. Andaiye
(Guyana) On behalf of The Global Women's Strike (GWS) * Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * OPEN
LETTER TO JOHN SWEENEY, President of the AFL-CIO,
April 2, 2003 1. Why we write: trade unions in Venezuela appeal to people in the US In July 2002, at a meeting in Venezuela1 we met a number of leaders of trade unions and community organizations who were calling for the arrest of the corrupt leadership of CTV (Workers Confederation of Venezuela), especially its president Carlos Ortega, whom they accused of being CIA. The CTV leadership has lent working class credibility to a military coup and ongoing attempts by the Venezuelan rich white racist elite on behalf of the international oil industry, the corporate media and the US government to bring down the Venezuelan government. President Hugo Chávez Frías was put in power by a popular movement in a landslide election in 1998. Since then this government has represented Venezuela’s poor, overwhelmingly people of color. The trade unionists complained to us that the CTV leadership had benefited, and continues to benefit, from the support of the AFL-CIO. They asked for “solidarity and respect from North American people for our peaceful and democratic process which represents the great majority of our people, of women, poor people and those in greatest need.” According to trade union federations CUTV, CGT and FBT, by December 2002 CTV had lost the support of: 70% of the oil workers’, 95% of energy sector workers, 60% of central administration workers, 100% of industrial workers – iron, aluminium and auto – and 75% of private sector unions. According to Germanico Moyano, general secretary of SUPROBAUX, the bauxite industry professional workers union, “A majority of workers are leaving the CTV, which now represents only around 20% of the workforce, while more than 50% are now part of the FBT [Fuerza Bolivariana de Trabajadores].” 2 On February 3, 2003, we received a letter from the FBT, an organization of trade unionists with whom we have been working for some months. The letter was addressed to the AFL-CIO and others in the international trade union group recently formed in response to the Friends of Venezuela initiative of the Brazilian government to “promote a negotiated, democratic, peaceful and electoral settlement to the venezuelan crisis”.3 The FBT alerts international trade union organizations to the anti-working class activities of the CTV leadership, gives a chronology of events, and invites workers and trade unionists to come and see for themselves. Events have moved fast, and by March, the repudiation of CTV by the Venezuelan trade union movement was total. On March 3, 2003, grassroots trade unions signed the Declaration of Cagua calling for a final break with the corrupt CTV and the creation of a new trade union federation to replace it. They proposed an open and democratic structure that would also include sectors excluded by CTV, such as unemployed and rural workers, and workers in cooperatives and the informal economy. Out of 3.000 trade unions, 2.500 – about 84% – have already agreed to join this new federation, which will be officially launched at the beginning of April. 4 How has the AFL-CIO responded to this appeal to reject the corrupt CTV and acknowledge the new movement? A number of US trade unionists, as well as ourselves, noted previously that, having given a promising commitment to the grassroots and to disengagement from the State Department, the AFL-CIO leadership has again allowed itself to become an arm of the US foreign policy of a president who represents employers, especially the arms and oil industries, and clearly cares nothing for the lives and welfare of working families at home and abroad. (See enclosed.) 2. The coup and AFL-CIO involvement As you know, on 11 April 2002 some top military men and the employers’ organization FEDECAMARAS, with the support of the US administration, overthrew the elected Venezuela government and installed a short-lived dictatorship. The leadership of CTV, especially its president Carlos Ortega, was centrally involved. · To give the coup the appearance of a popular rising, Ortega endorsed a “general strike” called by FEDECAMARAS in December 2001 and most crucially, another in April just before the coup. Both were described by most Venezuelan trade unionists as lockouts: workers were told to “stop work since we pay your wages, don’t turn up since your workplace will be closed.” 5 In December, Ortega appeared on TV triumphantly raising the hand of Carmona, the then president of FEDECAMARAS. · In April, it was Ortega who directed the employers’ march to the presidential residence so that the coup organizers could take power. They then kidnapped President Chávez. Most government offices were taken over by CTV officials along with others appointed by the employers and their new dictatorship. Ortega publicly congratulated dictator Carmona –who proceeded immediately to do away with all constitutional rights – and Ortega’s personal assistant, Leon Arismedi, was named as Minister of Planning and Development. · The US was the first – and only – government to recognise the Carmona dictatorship. · While the US State Department held secret meetings with and lavished funds on the coup organisers, the AFL-CIO supported CTV and Ortega through its American Centre for International Labor Solidarity – ACILS (which replaced the American Institute for Free Labor Development – AIFLD, see below). · Between 2000 and 2001, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) created by the US government during the cold war, more than tripled its Venezuela funding from $257,831 to $877,435. The lion’s share went to Chávez opponents. One of the main organizations to receive NED funding through the AFL-CIO’s ACILS was the CTV. Its funding more than doubled from $60,084 in 2000 to $154,377 in 2001. Apparently, the AFL-CIO money was used for “training courses” by the CTV’s Institute of Higher Education Union Studies (INAESIN). But as Alfredo Ramos, a new CTV member and anti-Chávez parliamentarian, said of INAESIN: “They don’t have to show their accounts.” 6 · On October 3, 2002, after the prominence of CTV’s leadership in the military coup was well known, you wrote to President Chávez on behalf of “the 13 million working men and women we represent” saying that the AFL-CIO “has supported the CTV in a process of profound internal democratic reform, including the first direct, universal and secret ballot elections at all levels.” You omit saying that it was the Chávez government, which had insisted upon this process as part of its drive to root out corruption at every level, including among trade unions. But this process is only worthwhile if it is not fraudulent. · You call on President Chávez “to recognize the members of the CTV executive council elected in November of 2001” – that is, Ortega and others who tried to overthrow him. Yet you must have known that the majority of trade unions had made public accusations that the November 2001 election was blatantly fraudulent. They alleged that 48% of the ballots had “disappeared” and the 52% that the leadership claims to have won was never submitted to scrutiny. The president of the Electoral Commission (no supporter of President Chávez) refused to ratify the election results; so the Electoral Commission was widened at the last minute to get enough members to declare Ortega’s victory. But the Electoral Commission document is signed by its members and not by its president. 7 · Like every other union bought off to represent employers’ interests, CTV has a long history of corruption. It had close ties to Acción Democrática, one of the two political parties that took turns in power for 40 years and that between them kept 80% of the population of Venezuela in poverty, deprived of its huge oil revenue while they – party leaders and supporters – themselves shared in its wealth. But instead of supporting the efforts of those trade unions, which, together with the government, aimed to end decades of union corruption, you have demanded that the government recognize the fraudulent results. · As the CUTV and CGT members told us: “The CTV leadership is not fighting for wages, nor for childcare facilities which by law employers are supposed to provide but don’t. They don’t fight for that, they fight for party politics.” 3. CTV attempts an oil coup CTV’s credibility among working people was further eroded by its participation in the December 2002-January 2003 media and oil coup whose explicit purpose was to bring down the government, including by inviting US intervention. · As in April 2002, employers and the CTV leadership called a “general strike”. Most workers fought the lockouts. They were particularly infuriated that the corporate media, which had been centrally involved in the coup, heralded the “strike” as a great success. There were mass pickets of the media demanding that they tell the truth. Despite the media lies and hype, it soon became impossible to hide that the “strike” was failing. · That’s when managers of the oil company PDVSA8 decided to bring the oil industry to a halt. According to Moyano, Marisel Benavides (SUPROBAUX’s financial secretary) and Carlos Rojas (labor director of the Venalum aluminum workers union), out of 35,000 employees, including 18,000 professionals and specialists, only 3,000 directors and managers went on “strike”. 9 · But before walking out, the bosses sabotaged the highly automated computer technology that controls production, distribution and export of oil, paralysing the industry. They adjusted temperature controls as high as boiling point causing explosions, disrupting electricity, gas and oil, and creating a humanitarian crisis as people could not cook or get healthcare. As a result, most workers could not do their jobs. But workers soon got the plants functioning by going back to manual operation “like we had 20 years ago”, and working 16-hour shifts seven days a week to keep the industry afloat. The corporate opposition is now resorting to terrorism, placing bombs and shooting holes in oil pipes.10 · Banks joined the attempted oil and media coup, closing their doors to the public to create a financial crisis (similar to what happened in Argentina as a result of IMF and World Bank profiteering). Most bank workers’ unions dissociated themselves from their bosses. They claim that Fetrabanca, the union affiliated to CTV which joined the “strike”, represents only 1.7% of bank workers, and the unions opposed to the “strike”, which they list, represent 60-70% of bank workers.11 · The statement issued by Pedro Eusse, General Secretary of CUTV, dated December 18, 2002, makes clear where workers generally stood: “. . . the Venezuelan working class has not joined any ‘general strike’, whose clear aims are to destabilize and bring down the legitimate government in order to meet the ambitions of the national oligarchy and of American imperialism which wants to take charge of our oil industry and prevent the formation of an alliance of governments and peoples in Latin America (Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador) who oppose its plans for domination based on the implementation of ALCA.” · Following the defeat of the oil coup by the oil workers and workers generally, President Chavez was urged again, by trade unionists and others, to move on FEDECAMARAS, the employers’ organization, and on the corrupt CTV leadership. In response, Carlos Fernandez, the head of FEDECAMARAS was arrested and a detention order issued against Ortega for instigating criminal acts, conspiracy and sabotage, in attempts to bring down the elected government. Ortega ran away and was granted asylum by Costa Rica. · Speaking about the new Federation formed in March to replace CTV, FBT, one of its founding organizations stated that: “The politicking and pro-employer role of the CTV in the April coup and the December and January oil sabotage has saddled us with the total abandonment of the trade union struggle that for years united unions looking to achieve better working conditions and wages.” The new Federation will now have to deal with the problem of firings as "employers make workers pay for the losses incurred as a result of their own economic sabotage.” 12 It will also have to address the bad image the CTV has given to the trade union movement in Venezuela, which has used its access to international forums to attack the revolutionary process, “abusing the patience and support of workers in other countries”. 13 4. AFL-CIO responds with more support for the scab union The Venezuelan trade unionists’ appeal for the AFL-CIO to stop supporting Ortega has fallen on deaf ears. · On February 27, 2003, the AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution saying it was “gravely concerned about the order of detention issued recently against Carlos Ortega … based on accusations of treason, civil rebellion, instigation of crimes, gang activity and devastation. These accusations appear to be an attempt to criminalize Mr. Ortega's exercise of basic civil rights, civil protest and freedom of expression. Such an attempt would violate fundamental human rights guaranteed in the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela.” Incredibly, this is the very constitution that Ortega and his gang have tried to eliminate by bringing down the government. · Making even clearer whose side the AFL-CIO is really worried about, the resolution goes on to express concern “about the detention of Carlos Fernandez, president of FEDECAMARAS, and “joins with the International Labor Organization in asking that the arrest warrant against Brother Ortega be withdrawn immediately and that Mr. Fernandez be released.” The resolution is signed by Benjamin Davis, Regional Program Director, Americas Region, Solidarity Center. 5. The AFL-CIO as an arm of the State Department Funding corrupt trade unions like CTV is unfortunately not a departure from the involvement of US unions in building the US empire. As you know, there is a long history of AFL-CIO acting as an arm of the State Department to boost US corporate interests throughout the world at the expense of labor and other human rights.14 · The American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) was established after the 1959 Cuban Revolution to create a new foreign affairs operation in Latin America to control labor movements there. The AFL-CIO's "specific desire to promote and protect US economic interests abroad led it to promote international interventionist activities jointly funded by the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency .” (See below for references.) The AIFLD was to support or create "free trade unions" that would undermine any movement critical of US policy or investment, or even critical of their own government’s support for the US. This labor-government-corporate alliance in Latin America paralleled the African American Labor Center (AALC) and the Asian American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI). In the 90s all three institutes were merged into the American Center for International Labor Solidarity – ACILS, known as the Solidarity Centre. · The US government funded AIFLD. Bill Brock, former US senator, trade representative, secretary of labor and then chair of the government-created National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has written, "The aid [the AFL-CIO's international institutes] offer to 'free labor unions' has been one of the most effective tools the US has possessed in the postwar period to halt the spread of communism through subversion of workers' movements in the developing world." "... the AFL-CIO and AIFLD have consistently supported right-wing and fiercely anti-left-wing administrations and military governments no matter what their policy toward labor." · The AIFLD had its biggest impact on Latin America, but the AAFLI and AALC were also destructive. AIFLD helped overthrow democratically-elected governments in Guyana in 1964, Brazil in 1964, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Chile in 1973. They also collaborated with dictators: in El Salvador, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa and South Korea, as well as in Brazil and Chile after their respective military coups. And AIFLD in particular has organized against governments that have come to power after overthrowing dictatorships, most notably, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, but also Father Aristide's first government in Haiti. Helping to subvert the elected government in Venezuela is in this trade union tradition! 6. The AFL-CIO and the military coup in Chile The sustained attack on the Chávez government is often compared to what Chile faced in 1970-1973. The AFL-CIO helped the Nixon administration and a number of US-owned multinational corporations to create conditions that led to the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government by a murderous military coup.15 · Preaching “free trade unionism” and challenging Chile's larger, pro-Salvador Allende labor movement, the AIFLD intensified its activities after the 1970 election put Allende’s Popular Unity government in power. “Leadership training” was combined with a transfer of funds supporting the professional and business associations, which opposed the Popular Unity government. AIFLD ran a major educational program, which was acknowledged by Henry Kissinger as a major component of the US attack on Allende. Most of those who were trained by AIFLD were not blue collar or lower level white-collar workers but professional employees and small business groups, such as truck owners. · The New York Times (September 20, 1974) reported that intelligence sources had disclosed that most of more than $8 million authorized for clandestine CIA activities in Chile was used in 1972-1973 to pay strike benefits and give other payment to anti-Allende strikers and workers. · Among those heavily subsidized were organizers of a nationwide truck strike in 1972, which paralyzed the country by causing severe shortages of food and other essentials. · The Chile AIFLD program received $125,000 in 1972 and another $118,000 in 1973. · AIFLD helped in the formation of the Confederation of Chilean Professionals (CUPROCH) and was involved with the National Command for Gremio Defense (a center of different coalitions, including CUPROCH). The National Command was “the organization which directed the ‘strike’ of truck owners and merchants”, and was “responsible for planning and executing Chile’s internal economic chaos. It also set up paramilitary groups to terrorize supporters of the Allende government.” This coalition of professional unions, which included the union of truck owners, was identified by President Allende during his final radio transmission to the people of Chile before he was killed as leading the destabilization used to justify the coup and "restore order". · As a result of the AFL-CIO-assisted coup, "The government crushed Chile's labor movement, murdered thousands of unionists, and restored Chile's industry to its former US owners." (Weinrub and Bollinger, 1987:17). · Programs designed by AIFLD to provide compliant union leaders with housing asked the following questions on their applications: what is the “internal organization of the union?; internal friction among leaders and members; is the applicant interested in power, prestige, influence?; does the person accept guidance and orientation?; political and ideological connections?; photograph if possible.” Hirsch and Muir (1987) claim that the AIFLD contact list of trainees was almost half a million people. · The military used such lists mercilessly. A June 1974 broadcast told of a Valparaiso port union leader “producing lists of unionists to be shot, jailed or fired”. A Chilean magazine mentioned a Pinochet general with a “complete file on workers and unions in the capital”. 7. The strange bedfellows of the AFL-CIO The AFL-CIO cannot claim in a single letter or resolution that you both support the CTV leadership and the employers’ leadership but oppose the coup they carried out. In supporting Ortega and Fernandez in 2003 you are effectively acting as an arm of the State Department and aligning yourself politically and financially with: 1. The Carmona dictatorship that was defeated by a popular uprising, returning President Chávez to power after three days. In its two days in power, the dictatorship raided the offices of trade unions opposed to the coup, abolished the National Assembly, the constitution and 49 laws that benefited unwaged and low-waged workers. 2. The privatization of the oilfields, the central source of survival funds for the Venezuelan population. The December-January blockade was called by some oil multinationals and managers. Evidence has recently emerged that the officers intent on bringing the Venezuelan PDVSA state company to a halt were getting their orders straight from Washington. 3. The oil managers, highly paid and educated in the US in, among other skills, union busting, against the oil workers who have refused to strike against the people’s elected government. 4. The employers’ federation and the rich and racist white elite that opposes the government because it wants the national oil revenue and therefore does not want it wasted on tackling poverty. 80% of the population – overwhelmingly people of mixed Indigenous and African descent (like their president, not their employers) – lives in poverty. 5. The “golpista” corporate media that promoted the coup, bombarding its audience with political advertisements to come out on “strike” and with racist abuse against President Chávez and his supporters – commonly referring to them as “monkeys” and “rabble” – while blanking out news of the popular uprising that reinstated him and opposed the “strikes”. Venevisión, one of the most rabid Venezuelan TV channels, belongs to Gustavo Cisneros, a longtime friend of George Bush senior. Before the coup Cisneros had ongoing talks with Otto Reich, then head of the State Department’s Western Hemisphere division. 6. Attempts to defeat the efforts of women and their families to be released from the unbearable burden of work that poverty imposes above all on women, and especially on the 70% of households, which are headed by women. 7. Attacks on the many gains of the 1999 pro-working families constitution voted in by 76% of the population, which is being implemented: a just distribution of wealth; legal and pay equity between women and men; recognition of housework as productive work; economic credits and pensions for housewives; a Women’s Development Bank and a People’s Bank for micro credit; social security and free education for all; improved nutrition for babies and children; redistribution of land and property titles prioritizing woman-headed households; measures benefiting rural and fisher-families; small cooperatives and the environment; anti-racism and other discrimination; extensive Indigenous rights; a minimum wage; an 8-hour day, a ban on compulsory overtime . . . Many of these gains are what labor movements internationally claim they have been fighting for but have yet to secure even in the US and other industrialized countries. 8. Undermining the strong commitment to tackle domestic violence and the machismo of the justice system that women have won with the Chávez government. The Women’s Institute is implementing a National Plan in Defence of Women with a hotline and shelters for victims of domestic violence. 9. Undermining some of the lowest paid workers in the world in their effort to better their lives. Yet raising the bottom everywhere is the only guarantee that workers in the US and other countries of the North will not see their jobs vanish and their wages drop to the present level of workers in the South. 10. Undermining the movement against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) that is sweeping the Americas, thus contradicting your own opposition to NAFTA and its extension. NAFTA has led to a worsening of wages and working conditions for workers in Mexico as well as in the US. The AFL-CIO is misusing the resources and power of organised labor. Its collaboration with the State Department and the implications of this for working people everywhere have been hidden from the membership who have had no part in determining AFL-CIO policy – they just pay for it in many ways. · In supporting the CTV and the employers’ leaderships you scab on women and men who are trying to organize in their own defence on a continent that has been tormented by dictatorships, death squads, torture and invasion, backed – when not organized – by the State Department. · You align yourself with the US administration at a time when: the CIA has officially adopted a policy of assassinations (there have already been attempts on President Chávez’s life); hundreds of prisoners of war are being kept in concentration camps in Guantánamo Bay, in breach of international human rights law and conventions; the Patriot Act has introduced parallel repression against your members in the US; the Bush administration is intent on going to war and killing perhaps millions of women, children and men, in other words working families in Iraq, who are no threat to working families in the US or elsewhere and who have already suffered greatly as a result of 12 years of US-enforced economic sanctions. · You assist a president who rules for the corporations, and who, like Ortega, got into office fraudulently. 8. The US killing fields The last century has seen the bloodiest killing fields the world has ever known. Since World War II, US military spending has been the equivalent of $26 million a day since the birth of Christ. · Time after time we have not prevented US troops and missiles from bombing people in other countries in the name of democracy, the free world, American interests, the free market; or training and funding the troops and death squads of dictators (including of Saddam Hussein). Weapons of mass destruction have been and continue to be used by the US – from the atom bomb against civilians for the first time in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to chemical weapons such as agent orange in Vietnam and bombs tipped with depleted uranium in the Gulf war. The cumulative effect of each of these, often hidden from us, has been to kill or disable millions long after the wars were over, including newborn children and US veterans. The US now threatens to use yet another generation of nuclear weapons in Iraq. · Yet the AFL-CIO has shown shamefully weak opposition to Bush’s insistence on driving millions of our sisters and brothers back to the Stone Age in Iraq, riding roughshod over the huge opposition to this war in the US and the world. Venezuelans point out that the April coup, like the planned war against Iraq, is first of all about US control of oil. But Venezuela and Iraq are not the only countries under threat. · The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan made way for the Unocal pipeline. With the help of Plan Colombia, Colombians, especially oil workers and trade unionists who are fighting to prevent privatisation, are being slaughtered. Nigerians who oppose Shell, women or men, are eliminated – though last summer women won an important victory by taking over oil installations and demanding Shell provide electricity, schools, etc., for the surrounding communities. Millions of people in a number of countries in Africa are being murdered or starved to death on behalf of the oil industry. Where will it stop? The millions who took to the streets in every country on February 15 demanding “No blood for oil” are signalling that it must stop now. 9. None of us has an excuse for allowing unions to attack workers · We will not, we cannot be held back from opposing trade union policies, actions and inactions when they strike at the very core of why we built them in the first place, by fear of the charge that this may undermine working class unity. We built unions so that those of us who have least in Los Angeles, Caracas, Johannesburg, Calcutta or Baghdad could move up together, thereby abolishing the bottom. · When unions, institutions we built, attack any of us, then in self-defence we dare not forget that an injury to one is an injury to all. · Instead of building what we need most at this frightening time, working class unity across national boundaries and against all exploiters, the AFL-CIO is using our own organization against us, thus handing over our power to our bosses. This AFL-CIO collaboration with the White House has weakened its ability to defend workers in the US. · As some of the richest people in the US who oppose Bush’s abolition of the inheritance tax point out: “In 1980, a chief executive earned 42 times the pay of their workers; now it is 419 times as much.” 16 · Yet the AFL-CIO has not responded effectively to the federal workers’ pay cut in the US that Bush claims is needed to move resources to his “War on Terrorism” – which the AFL-CIO has gone out of its way to support. Nor can it counter the damage being done to its organizing on domestic issues, from healthcare to unionization, because immigrant workers, among others, have been terrorized by the “War on Terror”. To say nothing of the disconnection from Latina/o workers who overwhelmingly support the peaceful and democratic Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. · We will never defeat exploitation anywhere if we support or even allow this anywhere. The AFL-CIO has no excuse for doing this, and we have no excuse for allowing it. It is time the AFL-CIO showed “solidarity and respect”, and went back to the basic trade union principle that an injury to one is an injury to all internationally. While you may be tempted to ignore this call because it comes from women, and because we are not an official trade union, it is important to remember that: a) the overwhelming majority of waged workers in the world are not in unions (only 14.6% of Venezuelan waged workers are unionized, 13% in the US); and b) women do most of the world’s work, 2/3 of it according to the ILO. FBT recognizes that most workers in Venezuela, as in the rest of the world, are not waged. We hope that you will accept FBT’s invitation to “come and meet women and men workers in the informal economy, unemployed people, and the people of Venezuela, the real protagonists in this struggle.” Power to the sisters and brothers internationally who eat by the sweat of our brow. Andaiye (Guyana) Paula Bustamante (Peru) Phoebe Jones Schellenberg (USA) Nina López-Jones (England) On
behalf of The Global Women’s Strike The GWS, grassroots actions in over 70 countries on every March 8, International Women’s Day, is coordinated by the International Wages for Housework Campaign and WinWages (Women’s International Network for Wages for Caring work), which is based in Argentina, Guyana, India, Ireland, Peru, England, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda and the US. References: 1. The meeting included representatives of CGT-tendencia clasista (Confederación General de Trabajadores), the International Department of CUTV (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela) and the Instituto Laboral Andino (Andean Labor Institute) which represents Andean workers from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela and the Consejo Andino de Mujeres Trabajadoras (Council of Andean Working Women), as well as community organizations. 2. The FBT (Workers’ Bolivarian Forces) is an organization of over 1,500 leaders of unions in basic industries, including transport, public services, iron and steel, aluminum and bauxite, electrical generation and distribution. FBT’s letter to AFL-CIO and other international trade unions is signed by Oswaldo Vera (president of the university employees’ union ATAUSIBO) and Eduardo Piñate (president of the teachers’ union SINAFUN). 3. The newly elected President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, proposed a Group of Friends of Venezuela that includes governments from neighbor countries as well as Spain and the US. 4. March 3, 2003, Aporrea / Ultimas Noticias 5. FBT letter to AFL-CIO and others, February 3, 2003 6. Mike Ceaser, freelance journalist based in Caracas msceaser@yahoo.com 7. Elio Colmenarez, FBT representative on the CTV’s Electoral Commission during the 2001 electoral process. 8. PDVSA: Petróleos de Venezuela Sociedad Anónima 9. In Venezuela unionization is equivalent to 14,6% or 1,800,000 workers. Of almost 3,000 unions, more than half are not in federations. A majority of those who are federated are with CTV; the rest are split into three other central unions: CUTV, CGT and CODESA. 10. Susan Webb, People’s Weekly World, February 8, 2003 11. Aníbal Galindo, bank workers’ union adviser, listed the unions that rejected the “strike” and said they were leaving the CTV. He called for an investigation into Fetrabanca for claiming to represent unions that are not affiliated to it, and into its president, Elías Torres, who received a retirement deal worth 95,421,930 bolívares. 12 & 13. José Ramón Rivero, FBT’s National Coordination, quoted in Venpres, March 4, 2003 14 & 15. These two sections on AIFLD are based on Kim Scipes’ article “It’s Time to Come Clean”, Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 25, No.2, Summer 2000. S.4-25. Kim Scipes quotes extensively from many sources, especially from Bollinger, Fagan, Hirsch, Kaufman, Kirkland, Muir, Robinson, Spalding, Weinrub, Winburg . . . For the full article and fuller credits please see LabourNet Germany: http://www.labournet.de/ Kim Scipes’ article argues that “President Sweeney seems to recognize that many of the changes in the global economy are detrimental to unionized workers in the US, and thus it is in the best interest of the AFL-CIO to build the greatest amount of solidarity with labor and other groups in efforts to unionize and defend workers. Key to these efforts to build solidarity is an honest coming-to-terms with the past practices of the AFL-CIO. It is not enough to say those practices are ‘behind us’. The past foreign policy of the Federation needs to be specifically repudiated by the leadership.” Unfortunately as the present AFL-CIO support for CTV in Venezuela shows, such foreign policy is not “past”. 16. The Guardian, February 12, 2003. LETTRE
OUVERTE À JOHN SWEENY, Président de l’AFL-CIO |