Workers against Chavez: neo-liberalism on the rise?

Polar workers do not want to become bureaucrats!

UPDATE: for those of you in Facebook you can join a support group. After all the beers you got from them in warm sunny days, it is the least you can do!

Alo Presidente is indeed the TV show that sets the agenda for the week.  Either because of the reactions to the ludicrous announcements that are now routine there, or because Chavez actually announces what will happen.

Yesterday Chavez attacked Polar, ordered the justice system to investigate Polar for hoarding corn flour (that is right, Chavez orders what is supposedly an independent power, one where you send a written request, not a a vulgar order through a talk show).  He also attacked the workers of Polar for siding with Polar and defend their jobs.  Video here. Article summary in English here.


The result was in part predictable but on the other hand a further nasty surprise for Chavez.

Quickly enough the diverse fascistoid organisms of the state descended on two Polar warehouses, in Barquisimeto and Valencia trying to find out signs of hoarding.  But lo and behold, it was the local Trade Union leader that declared to say that the facility in Valencia was working normally and that there was no hoarding.

Meanwhile in Barquisimeto the large majority of workers,united, protested against the harassment of Polar, accusing the local mayor of being a liar, along the way.

This phenomenon of workers defending their employer shows signs of expanding.  Already we were surprised by the intensity of the rejection of the EXITO workers last January when Chavez grabbed it.  Now such manifestations are becoming routine.  I suppose that the starting point was the massive expropriation of the contractors of Zulia COL region.  Within weeks the very same workers that were waving red flags in joy at becoming employees of PDVSA found out that very few of them did become bureaucrats and that most of them lost benefits and even their jobs altogether.  The Cabimas area is now in an economic recession that shows no sign of betterment in the near future and Globovison carries regularly images of protesters claiming their due.

The chavista state is now seen as a dead beat state.  If in earlier time people did not care much, after all it was public employees and some health workers that were protesting late payments, now it is workers of recently nationalized business.  These people were used to cash in their pay check every week, were used to go to the Labour ministry local branch if they had any complaint.  Now the state is constantly late in the payment of its obligation, and it is useless to go to the Labour Ministry because they will not even receive you.  Workers in the private sector do understand that much better than helpless nurses protesting at the doors of crumbling hospitals.

The message is clear and went through like lightning.  Those who are still in the private sector, be they even chavista, do not want to become red shirted employees of Chavez.  Chavez excesses are bringing the unthinkable a decade go: the creation of a positive capitalism neo-Liberal approach where workers and owners work together to push forward the goals of the business.  Now, that would be a real revolution in Venezuela!!!