"Co-management" in Venezuela = Union-Busting and Increased Exploitation of Workers
Much has been made recently of "co-management" in Venezuela. Jonah Goldin has contributed important facts to the discussion on "co-management" in a recent article. (1)
At Cadafe, the Venezuelan state electricity utility, after three years of "co-management," the workers have only 2 seats on a 5-member "coordinating committee," and while the "coordinating committee" can make recommendations to the bourgeois-government bureaucrat from the Ministry of Energy, who is the president of Cadafe, the bureaucrat/president is under no compulsion to follow their recommendations. Angel Navas, a trade union leader at Cadafe, said: “When we began pushing for the concrete elaboration of co-management . . . we provoked the rejection of supposed representatives of the state who refused to share power with the workers.”(1) Resistance on the part of "representatives of the state" simply confirms that the Venezuelan state truly is bougeois.
Venepal, the state paper enterprise, was purchased by the Venezuelan government at full market value, paid to the former owners, so that nationalization of the enterprise was not so much an expropriation as a purchase. Half of Venepal was then slated to be run on the basis of "co-management," between the workers and the (bourgeois) Venezuelan state. Workers in Venepal are now grouped into a cooperative to run the enterprise, thereby turning the 800 Venepal workers into capitalists, who stand to pocket tax-exempt profits from the enterprise. Another aspect of the cooperative nature of Venepal is that, according to one member of the plant's directorate, unions are no longer needed at Venepal. In other words, Venezuelan "co-management" apparently entails eliminating unions. (1)
At the state-run aluminum plant Alcasa, union leader Trino Silva has said that “What we need first is a factory that is productive. Today the company is becoming productive, but it must not only be productive, but also profitable." (1) Under "state-worker co-management, a system of shared management between state representatives and workers," workers at Alcasa now have the privilege of electing a manager and two assistants to enforce the speedup in production. (2)
The claim has been made that "co-management" cogestion is more or less the equivalent of "workers' control" control obrero. But this is obviously not true. Lenin's "Draft Regulations on Workers' Control" make this quite clear: "Workers' control over the production, storage, purchase and sale of all products and raw materials shall be introduced in all industrial, commercial, banking, agricultural and other enterprises . . . Workers' control shall be exercised by all the workers and office employees of an enterprise, either directly, if the enterprise is small enough to permit it, or through their elected representatives, who shall be elected immediately at general meetings. . . . The elected representatives shall be given access to all books and documents and to all warehouses and stocks of materials, instruments and products, without exception. . . . The decisions of the elected representatives of the workers and office employees are binding upon the owners of enterprises and may be annulled only by trade unions and their congresses." (3)
Where are union-busting and speedup, features of Venezuelan "co-management," to be found in the Leninist concept of workers' control? "Co-management" is merely an attempt by the exploiters to make workers enforce their own exploitation. One should remember that making an agreement with the bosses is not a good idea.
(1) http://www.monthlyreview.org/0605gindin.htm
(2) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1407
(3) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/26.htm
At Cadafe, the Venezuelan state electricity utility, after three years of "co-management," the workers have only 2 seats on a 5-member "coordinating committee," and while the "coordinating committee" can make recommendations to the bourgeois-government bureaucrat from the Ministry of Energy, who is the president of Cadafe, the bureaucrat/president is under no compulsion to follow their recommendations. Angel Navas, a trade union leader at Cadafe, said: “When we began pushing for the concrete elaboration of co-management . . . we provoked the rejection of supposed representatives of the state who refused to share power with the workers.”(1) Resistance on the part of "representatives of the state" simply confirms that the Venezuelan state truly is bougeois.
Venepal, the state paper enterprise, was purchased by the Venezuelan government at full market value, paid to the former owners, so that nationalization of the enterprise was not so much an expropriation as a purchase. Half of Venepal was then slated to be run on the basis of "co-management," between the workers and the (bourgeois) Venezuelan state. Workers in Venepal are now grouped into a cooperative to run the enterprise, thereby turning the 800 Venepal workers into capitalists, who stand to pocket tax-exempt profits from the enterprise. Another aspect of the cooperative nature of Venepal is that, according to one member of the plant's directorate, unions are no longer needed at Venepal. In other words, Venezuelan "co-management" apparently entails eliminating unions. (1)
At the state-run aluminum plant Alcasa, union leader Trino Silva has said that “What we need first is a factory that is productive. Today the company is becoming productive, but it must not only be productive, but also profitable." (1) Under "state-worker co-management, a system of shared management between state representatives and workers," workers at Alcasa now have the privilege of electing a manager and two assistants to enforce the speedup in production. (2)
The claim has been made that "co-management" cogestion is more or less the equivalent of "workers' control" control obrero. But this is obviously not true. Lenin's "Draft Regulations on Workers' Control" make this quite clear: "Workers' control over the production, storage, purchase and sale of all products and raw materials shall be introduced in all industrial, commercial, banking, agricultural and other enterprises . . . Workers' control shall be exercised by all the workers and office employees of an enterprise, either directly, if the enterprise is small enough to permit it, or through their elected representatives, who shall be elected immediately at general meetings. . . . The elected representatives shall be given access to all books and documents and to all warehouses and stocks of materials, instruments and products, without exception. . . . The decisions of the elected representatives of the workers and office employees are binding upon the owners of enterprises and may be annulled only by trade unions and their congresses." (3)
Where are union-busting and speedup, features of Venezuelan "co-management," to be found in the Leninist concept of workers' control? "Co-management" is merely an attempt by the exploiters to make workers enforce their own exploitation. One should remember that making an agreement with the bosses is not a good idea.
(1) http://www.monthlyreview.org/0605gindin.htm
(2) http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1407
(3) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/26.htm
posted by Yosef Mikhah @ 10:38 AM
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