A sample of the labor situation that occurs at the level of public workers in Venezuela, were the protest actions that occurred nationwide, in many offices of the Instituto Postal Telegráfico (IPOSTEL), between October 31 and November 4, 2022. This national institution manages postal services and other public administrative offices. It groups between active, retired and pensioners around 7,200 workers. The labor-management relationship has always been marked by the employer’s failure to comply with contractual agreements. Prior to the signing of the current collective bargaining agreement - currently expired - the last one was 24 years overdue. Hardly a better corollary.

These events of the struggle of the Ipostel working class reflect the discontent prevailing in the labor mass of the State, which is of the order of three million workers. This year a large part of the labor protests were led by public workers in the mining, health, education, etc. sectors. In spite of the fact that in Ipostel the "mockery" of the Employer is the daily bread, its employees do not respond forcefully when it comes to demanding the fulfillment of their demands. This situation is easily explained, due to the control exercised by opportunism, through its union agents, as well as the great level of class unconsciousness suffered by the workers. In the last struggle, the events were triggered by the elimination of certain wage bonuses, which officially had begun to be cancelled, both for active and retired workers. This became a direct reduction of salaries and pensions.

The labor climate at Ipostel, already heated due to the pyrrhic salaries received by these workers, as well as the great breach of the collective bargaining agreement, triggered a sudden protest, which if it was not absolute of all the workers at national level, in most of the post offices, a percentage of the workers kept on protesting for all those days. At the beginning of these events, some union leaders from the province went to the capital of the country to improvise a union "command" to lead the struggle. At the main headquarters of this Institute in Caracas, the focus of the street protest was installed. There, active and retired workers, more retired than active, were agitating and spreading the word about their situation. The national press, social networks and banners helped in this.

As it is obvious, the struggle was contaminated by legalistic, pro-government, patriotic, democratic and politically naïve positions. But even so the capital-labor contradiction was maintained in the protest. In spite of all this, the bosses agreed to negotiate with the workers, making agreements that were never very clear and were subject to the availability of the institution’s financial resources. The salary bonuses were reinstated, but with no salary impact, according to the employer for the time being. Likewise, there was no retaliation against any worker for participating in the struggle, a point that was demanded in the negotiations with the employer.

Finally, the results of the conflict were assumed by the workers as one more deception by the bosses, since the demands achieved were very insignificant. And the intention of the bosses with these agreements was to demobilize the workers and put an end to the protest. These negative results could have occurred because the struggle was being waged by a small group of workers, the active workers had very little participation, and also in the leadership of the actions there were some sympathizers or militants of the government party and other opponents of the government, who obviously did not manage to maintain a class-based leadership and organization of the struggle. Even though the conflict was ended, there remained the idea among the workers that it would be resumed again.

Although many times in the spontaneous leadership of these conflicts, we find workers who have some sympathy with the opportunist parties or others, the facts lead them to take classist positions, since their political sympathy in most cases is not solid. But this favorable leap will depend on the great participation of the workers, under positions that go in defense of the demands and organization of the working class. And so the revolutionary work of the communists within the working class will be to continue with the work of carrying the revolutionary message for the organization and struggle not only in the economic field, but also politically.

El Partido Comunista, number 30, January 2023

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