CTV calls for ballot on full labor contract

Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA should hold a vote on the whole new collective labor contract and not just a part of it, labor union confederation CTV's executive secretary Froilan Barrios told BNamericas. PDVSA plans to hold a ballot by end-February among the country's 44,000-plus oil workers on the elimination of subsidized groceries in return for a US$250/month cash credit. "That's the only point of the new contract that's still up for discussion," a PDVSA spokesperson told BNamericas. However, Barrios says this vote should be extended to cover the whole contract. "We will pressure for this to become a ballot on the entire contract, with street demonstrations and all," he said. PDVSA and oil unions Fedepetrol, Sinutrapetrol and Fetrahidrocarburos reached an agreement on the 2004-2006 contract last week, and plan to sign it January 12. Oil workers received on Monday a lump-sum payment corresponding to their new salaries retroactive to October 2004, when the old contract expired. But under Venezuelan labor law, collecting money does not necessarily mean accepting the terms of the contract. The CTV has rejected the new contract and says it will seek an injunction if PDVSA refuses to hold a vote on the whole contract. It argues that the agreement, in exchange for higher salaries, takes away from unions the right to a 60% quota in the hiring of contract oil workers. With the new contract, PDVSA management will hire 100% of all the contract personnel, up from only 40% in the old contract. In addition, for all the privileges workers are giving up, the salary increase is not that great either, Barrios said. "The salary now is US$500 a month, the worst salary for an oil worker anywhere in the world," he said. The increase in salary is just 30%, while accumulated inflation over the course of the previous 2002-2004 contract tops 50%, Barrios added. Under the new contract, PDVSA would eliminate workers' grocery stores where they could buy food at subsidized prizes in exchange for a US$250/month cash card that could be used anywhere. In a country where families spend more than half their monthly income buying food, the loss of the grocery stores "has people up in arms here in Zulia state," Barrios said. Zulia is Venezuela's top oil-producing state. However, challenges against oil workers' contracts do not usually go very far in the labor ministry, where opposition leaders say minister Maria Cristina Iglesias toes the government's ideological line, Barrios said. Moreover, the CTV has a past of opposing the government from an ideological standpoint, calling work stoppages and street demonstrations and supporting other actions aimed at ousting President Hugo Chávez. However, Barrios denied suggestions that he is motivated by political reasons. "Explaining to a worker that he lost his grocery store, or that his union no longer has a say in deciding who's hired, I don't see how that's political," he said. Despite CTV's complaints about the contract, the Fedepetrol union, which is also a CTV affiliate, says workers are generally happy with it. "The workers seem to be happy [with the contract]. Me personally? No, I'm not, but it's not up to me, it's up to them, to the base, to the workers to make that decision, if they want to introduce an injunction," Fedepetrol's president Bladimiro Blanco told BNamericas. Fedepetrol plans to hold its own ballot on the contract next week for its 8,000 members, Blanco said, adding the vote will be held January 11 - the day before the contract is signed - so workers could still make trouble for PDVSA management.