The control of transnationals over Venezuelan oil and gas is growing, while the working class remains burdened by low wages and over-exploitation.

Oil, petrochemical and gas workers: break with passivity and illusions and prepare for class struggle.

Between January 2023 and July 2024, oil production in Venezuela went from 732,000 BPD to 928,000 BPD, representing an increase of 196,000 BPD (26.78%). Of this increase, Chevron added 189,000 BPD (96.43%). The difference in this growth (7,000 BPD) represents PDVSA’s own effort, but even in this fraction companies such as Eni, Repsol and Maurel & Prom have participated.

In other words, the growth of Venezuelan oil production is openly dependent on the participation of transnational companies in the recovery of wells and in the production of crude oil and gas. Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) does not have the financial muscle to have an autonomous impact on the recovery of production and this is compounded by an accumulation of operational limitations, a lack of qualified labor-which does not have attractive salaries-and is subject to the direction of top management focused on draining part of the oil income into channels of corruption.

Both production and exports survive thanks to the action of transnationals: Chevron, Eni, Repsol and Maurel & Prom. The income generated by PDVSA would hardly cover 60% of the budget of the Venezuelan bourgeois state. And oil prices still have not reached $80 per barrel. Likewise, it is estimated that Venezuela owes approximately $154 billion to foreign lenders; although the government has not been able to pay this debt not only because of insufficient financial resources, but also due to the sanctions imposed by the United States, which prevent PDVSA and other state enterprises from making or receiving payments in international banks.

On the other hand, the world economic environment shows a tendency towards overproduction of oil and gas, a process that has not yet reached its maximum expression due to the limitations faced by Russian oil and gas to fully flow in the markets. This tendency towards overproduction will end up depressing the international prices of these raw materials.

Despite the fact that the different oil ministers and presidents of PDVSA have promised to meet ambitious production growth goals, only in July 2024 can they show the result of 2 drilling rigs in operation, despite the fact that they promised to activate 27 out of 121 rigs. The directors of PDVSA, Pequiven and other companies of the oil and gas sector are engaged in a constant demagogic campaign, touring plants and facilities, spreading lies in the social networks and manipulating the workers to keep them passive and hopeful in socio-economic improvements that they do not fulfill and receiving crumbs, while millions of dollars are spent in advertising and in making up the image of semi-paralyzed companies and waiting for the arrival of capital from the transnationals. And the sector’s unions, traitors and servile, have been committed to this process, while also participating in the feast of corruption.

The business model established by the Venezuelan bourgeois government is determined by alliances with the imperialist powers, leaving in the hands of the transnationals the recovery of oil and gas production and exports. So far, this is a scheme from which U.S. imperialism has taken the greatest advantage, relying on a set of sanctions that allow it to decide which companies will operate in Venezuelan territory and which will assume not only the recovery of oil wells but also the commercialization of the oil extracted. The Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan parliament have been signing multiple agreements with transnationals for the exploitation of Venezuelan oil, but so far the United States has the last word in deciding who enters and who does not. Even the agreement signed between the Venezuelan government and that of Trinidad to exploit gas in part of its maritime platform, which would allow the British Shell to enter, depends on the pronouncement of the US government.

In the framework of the confrontation between Venezuelan and non-Venezuelan bourgeois sectors for the control of the government and, therefore, of the oil, gas and other raw materials business, the present government has approached the imperialist group of the BRICS, led by China, to place these businesses at its disposal. This explains why the governments integrated to the BRICS immediately recognized the electoral triumph of Nicolás Maduro in his reelection as president of Venezuela. Behind the political clashes and negotiations regarding the July 2024 election results in Venezuela, inter-imperialist contradictions underlie. Even so, the post-electoral political confrontation has not stopped exports and maritime transport tracking portals report that during the 19 days after July 29, 12 ships left for the US from the docks of Jose, Amuay and Puerto La Cruz with cargo belonging to the US Chevron and the Spanish Repsol, which since July began to send crude oil to refineries in that country. Part of these exports are exchanged for gasoline, diesel and diluents received by the Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA.

Meanwhile, workers continue to be subjected to low wages, unhealthy and unsafe working conditions and a deterioration in benefits complementary to wages. This situation becomes more critical among retired and pensioned workers and among the unemployed, who are subjected to misery. Likewise, the discussion and renewal of collective bargaining agreements in all areas of economic activity has been paralyzed for a long time. In spite of the fact that in the case of oil, petrochemical and gas workers they receive better salary packages than strata of workers in other economic activities, their income and benefits continue to be far below the cost of living. Likewise, the entire mass of active workers is subjected to a very low salary scheme, complemented with the payment of different bonuses that are not counted in the calculation of their social benefits. The transnationals will not miss the opportunity to operate in Venezuela paying low salaries and with low layoff costs.

The position of the workers The working class is called to maintain its class independence and to express this independence in its struggles for union demands. In this sense, the class union movement that must arise among the oil, petrochemical and gas workers must assume the following positions:

- Not to limit itself to union organization by company or branch of industry and to constantly promote the integration of the organization and the struggle in a Single Class Union Front at local, regional, national and international levels, integrating workers from different companies, from different trades, of different nationalities and even affiliated to different unions, integrating in a single class struggle movement active, retired, pensioned and unemployed workers. The oil, petrochemical and gas workers must not only unite among themselves, at the base, but must also unite with the rest of the workers in a Single Class Union Front. Without the unity of the entire working class at the local, regional, national and international levels, it is very difficult to achieve partial victories in the struggles for demands against the capitalist bosses.

- To break with all the calls of the government, of the bosses, of the union leaders and of the different opportunist parties, which call to defend the homeland, the national economy and the operational continuity of the enterprises and which ask the workers to remain in labor peace, to paralyze their struggles and to sacrifice their demands for demands while waiting for the "economic recovery of the country" and "the improvement of the production of the enterprises". The recovery of the economy and the reactivation of the plants and the production in the areas of oil, gas and petrochemicals, as well as the growth of the income and profitability of the companies of the sector, will only be possible on the basis of the over-exploitation of the workers, of the payment of insufficient wages and without improvements in the working conditions and environment. If the economy, the country and the companies are doing well, the workers are doing badly. The new class-conscious trade union movement must oppose all nationalism and all solidarity with the company and the bosses. We cannot accept the bosses’ position that improvements in wages and working conditions depend on the company reactivating its plants and raising production.

- The class union that the workers must assume rejects the support of governments in the recruitment of workers to participate in wars between capitalist states. The class union that the oil, petrochemical and gas workers need must refuse to go to war against Guyana for the claim of the Essequibo territory, since the workers of both countries, as well as all the contracted wage-earning immigrants, will be exploited by the different companies that will extract and commercialize the oil and gas, to accumulate capital for the bourgeoisie and its national and transnational, public and private companies.

- Promote workers’ assemblies to debate on their situation, on the demands to be made, on the actions to be taken and on the commissions and working groups to be formed. Promote local assemblies that integrate workers from different companies and trades, as well as retirees, pensioners and the unemployed.

- To rescue the strike and street mobilization as the main forms of workers’ struggle. To the extent that there is strength, due to the massive participation of the workers, strikes should be called without prior notice, without minimum services and indefinite. The new trade union movement should constantly agitate for a General Strike that integrates all workers in the demand for a significant increase in wages, pensions and pensions and that demands the payment of full wages for the unemployed. Along with wage demands, the movement can incorporate demands such as the reduction of the working day, the reduction of the retirement age, the changeover of contract workers to permanent workers in the companies, elimination of overtime work, etc. Also demand the elimination of the scheme of payment of bonuses of different types, all becoming part of the salary and, therefore, to be counted in the calculation of social benefits.

- In the elections of presidents, governors, mayors and deputies it is decided who will be the new representative of the bourgeoisie in those positions. Class unionism does not participate in the elections of bourgeois democracy, nor does it campaign for any candidate and does not postulate the so-called "workers candidates". While the opportunists and union clowns call to vote in the bourgeois elections the class unions call for the struggle for demands and explain to the workers that any of the persons and movements that win in these elections are going to work from the government against the workers and, therefore, are enemies of the working class. Any workers’ leader who calls to vote for any of the candidates of bourgeois democracy must be considered a traitor.

- The problems of managerial capacities and corruption present in companies like PDVSA, Pequiven and others, are problems of the Venezuelan bourgeois state. The class union movement cannot demand a change of directors or managers, because any of those appointed will always be representatives of the boss. The workers must reject union leaders who call to demand the change or maintenance of directors or managers of the companies, since this is a distraction that makes them lose focus on the demands put forward in each struggle. If the company changes its managers, that is a problem of the employer and not of the workers. The class union movement does not promote the hope that new managers in the companies will bring improvements to the workers and calls on the workers to confront the representatives of the employer, in order to conquer the socio-economic demands.

- The growing presence of transnationals in the oil and gas business in Venezuela should not create the illusion that with these companies will come better wages. The trade union movement must make the workers understand that the transnationals will want to profit from the payment of low wages as PDVSA currently does. Nor does the class union movement assume the banners of struggle against the privatization of companies or against the penetration of transnationals associated with national, state or private capital. For the class union it does not matter whether the employer is public or private, national or transnational, they all represent equally the employer who must be confronted with the strike to defend and win demands.

- Take precautions against the repression of the government and the bosses, supported by the treacherous union leaders, who will want to stop this movement. Hence, the grassroots movement will often have to organize in a discreet manner, without exposing itself unnecessarily to the bosses and their agents of repression, until it achieves its consolidation and expansion among all the workers.

The advance towards a resurgence of the class unions has as a premise the multiplication and extension of the workers’ struggles, to the point of being beyond the control of the present unions of the regime, allies and accomplices of the bosses and the government. This is valid for the entire working class and applies therefore also to the oil, petrochemical and gas workers, who will have to go to the struggle, organized by the rank and file, going over the heads of the current traitorous union leaders.