Union freedom in Venezuela, a questionable right for workers and activists

The arrest of two union leaders of the Venezuelan state company Orinoco Steel (Sidor), who are serving a month in prison this Tuesday, is, for specialists and defenders of labor rights in Venezuelaa proof of the loss of the right to syndical freedom in the country.

The case of Daniel Romero and Leonardo Azócar, arrested on June 11 for demanding, in the state of Bolívar (south), better wages and compliance with the collective agreement at Sidor, is proof that “In Venezuela union freedom is discretionary” and “non-existent”Said Carlos Salazar, coordinator of the National Union Coalition, which brings together more than 100 organizations.

For Salazar, “Venezuela is at zero in terms of human rights” and labor, and in this context, facts of “persecution” and “abuse” against those who speak out on behalf of the workers.

The lawyer León Arismendi, a member of the board of the Institute of Higher Union Studies (Inaesin), agrees with this, for whom not even the presence of the International Labor Organization (ILO) serves to prevent the Executive “continue to invoke reasons of national security” for “rape” rights implicit in freedom of association.

Immediate release, a demand

The NGO Provea recently pointed out that “politically motivated repression persists”and “For a year now, people who defend labor human rights have been the ones at the greatest risk of being deprived of liberty.”

According to Provea’s calculation, the Government of Nicolás Maduro has arrested, so far in 2023, 20 Sidor workers for demanding their labor rights, 18 of them arrested in January and later released.

Added to this figure are the 6 union leaders arrested between July 4 and 7, 2022, and identified as Alcides Bracho, Emilio Negrín, Gabriel Blanco, Reinaldo Cortez, Néstor Astudillo and Alonso Meléndez, who remain in prison for crimes of association for committing a crime and conspiracy, said his lawyer, Eduardo Torres.

Torres explained that the accusations against his clients and the two from Sidor, also accused of “criminal association” and “hate speech and boycott”represent “An aberration because they are associated to defend rights, and they are protected, not only by the Constitution and the laws, but also by ILO Convention 87 on freedom of association.”

For his part, León Arismendi, a specialist in labor law, recalled that with these arrests, Venezuela fails to comply with the recommendations formulated by the ILO in 2019, among which is “the immediate release of any employer or trade unionist who could remain in prison in connection with the exercise of the legitimate activities of their organizations”.

“The stability of any society is closely linked to the conditions in which it works, particularly the level of remuneration. Where there are remunerations like those received by Venezuelan workers, there is a focus of permanent conflict. So the government, instead of attacking the cause of the problem, what it does is repress those who protest.”assured Arismendi.

A testimony

Ángel Bolívar, a Sidor worker with 24 years of service -three of them “disabled” of their work as a consequence, as he affirmed, of his union struggles- he described as “dramatic” the arrest of his companions Azócar and Romero, and criticized the fact that they were arrested in a procedure that he called “kidnapping”.

“Workers for the right to protest, for the human right to say enough is enough to what we are experiencing (…) We have persecutions, visits from the military with weapons of war, as if we were criminal terrorists, for simply telling the truth (…) and that is what the workers are doing, not only from Guyana, but from all sectors”, said.

Inaesin counted 592 labor conflicts during the first half of 2023, a period in which, according to the institute, the struggle of workers has continued, through “street actions” looking for “That the government authorities listen to their demands and define fair parameters for a greater and better performance of their activities in an environment free of violence and Workplace Harassment”.

Added to these struggles are now the protests for the release of the Sidor unionists, whom their relatives were able to see, according to Torres, 28 days after they were captured in Bolívar and taken to Caracas, where they await the presentation hearing.

Source: EFE