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The Bolivarian Revolution: Enter the Oil
Workers!
Directed by Selma Jones & Nina Lopez
Produced by the Bolivarian Circle of the Global Women’s Strike
VHS only, $16 (includes postage and handling)
REVIEW BY MARGARITA WINDISCH
When Hugo Chavez was elected president in
1998, millions of Venezuelans expected him to use the country’s oil
revenue to tackle the massive social problems and inequality in their
country.
Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter,
yet 80% of its population lives in poverty. In April 2002, the local
oligarchy, supported by the old trade union bureaucracy and the CIA,
attempted a coup to overthrow Chavez. However, millions of people took to
the streets, creating a vital alliance with the military to defeat the
coup.
One of the reasons for the coup was the ongoing
tussle between the rich, and the majority, over control of the state-owned
oil company PDVSA. Only a few months later, the elite organised a
bosses’ strike in the oil industry, locking out thousands of oil workers
and paralysing PDVSA. The oil workers took over the industry and in a
heroic effort managed to recover production and organise against massive
sabotage in just two months.
Now, a new documentary tells the story of how the
workers saved PDVSA, and are now organising to “put the oil industry at
the service of humanity”.
Through interviews with activists and leaders we
learn to understand the strategic importance of the oil industry and the
role that PDVSA plays in the revolutionary process. According to Jose
Bodas, 80% of Venezuela's industry depends on oil revenue that had
historically served the interests of the local elite and transnationals.
When the bosses initiated the lock out, the oil
workers did not lead the fight back, but were drawn into the process
through the decisive actions of the military and community at large. Nora
Castaneda from the Women's Development Bank explains that Venezuela’s
industrial workers had been in retreat for decades, because of a strategic
alliance of social democracy and the trade-union bureaucracy, which
demobilised and atomised the workers while handing over billions of
dollars to the local parasitical elite and transnational companies.
She says: “It's as if the industrial working class
had been asleep... The women came out first and the military workers came,
those who were not unionised — the grassroots — and placed themselves
on the front. From that movement industrial workers in Venezuela became
something entirely different.”
The defeat of the 2002 coup gave the workers
confidence and when the bosses’ oil strike threatened to destroy the
nascent revolution, the oil workers realised their strategic importance
and started to organise as a movement.
One of the most inspiring and emotional stories is
that of Tania Suarez, a contract worker in the oil industry for 14 years,
who highlights the leading role that women have played in the
revolutionary movement.
The documentary shows how workers’ control and
democracy can function. In 2003, workers set up the PDVSA guide committee,
to unify workers across the sector and help them manage it. These
committees play an important role in limiting the bureaucratic methods of
management.
According to Jesus Montilla, during the bosses’
strike, more than 18,000 workers left the industry, including
10,000-12,000 managers. They took with them vital and crippling know-how,
codes, “the brains” of the oil industry. However through the tireless
efforts of the oil workers (many of whom worked 22 hours a day) and the
massive support of the broader community, which also engaged engineers,
lawyers etc, oil production was able to recommence after only two months.
The PDVSA guide committees work in conjunction with
the new trade union confederation UNT (National Union of Workers) and the
community-based Bolivarian circles. The activists in the guide committees
are only too aware that fossil-fuel dependence is a double-edged sword.
That's why Jose Bodas says that oil-producing countries have a moral
obligation to their poorer brothers and sisters in Third World countries
to use this resource to create a more humane and just world. “We say no
more blood for oil. We must use this energy not to destroy the planet, but
so that all of us can live.”
The documentary ends at a stadium where the UNT
celebrates its first anniversary. Cheers, roars, thunderous claps and
tears from the thousands of participants follow the statement of UNT
president Maria Morilla and President Hugo Chavez when they declare that
the workers united were able to defeat the trade union bureaucracy and
criminal elite and that Venezuela in the hands of workers will be able to
build a better society.
Now tell me, how can you not be inspired?
All Women
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