Caracas.- After learning the official results of Venezuela’s parliamentary elections, the possible repeal of the inclusive Labor Law for Workers (LOTTT) was perhaps the first major threat from the bourgeois opposition on the revolutionary measures introduced by the Bolivarian Government.
Very early on, the right wing coalition that won the most seats in the new National Assembly, confirmed that its priorities in power will continue to be driven by the economic oligarchy; with this advance announcement reflects the specific requests of private business organizations.
Conscious of the importance of this law, passed in 2012 as a result of a long process within the Revolution, the opposition knows that by abolishing it, dismantling the fundamental legal norms governing labor relations following the empowerment of the working class, would facilitate the return to old forms of exploitation.
To date, the law has only been subject to threats, but after January 5, when the right wing bloc is installed in the Assembly, it could start along the path of legal pressure that would put it at risk, and therefore plunge a large mass of workers back into a depressing past.
Jesús Martínez Barrios, veteran guerrilla and tireless defender of the Venezuelan proletariat, knows full well what it took to make the law a reality. In his current role as Minister of People’s Power for Labor and Social Security, Barrios spoke with Granma International on the possible implications of the LOTTT repeal.
The first major loss, he notes, would be in regards to the new concept of workers as human beings, as opposed to the bourgeois perspective that considers them mere objects.
“In principle, the Labor Law for Workers (LOTTT) recognizes work as a social process, and that means people are not seen as commodities, who receive a wage for the sale of their labor. The worker no longer has a price, their human condition is restored.”
He emphasizes the real participation that workers now enjoy throughout the labor process, “from production to the fair distribution of wealth, notably in the direct benefits of the social missions and programs, including pay and collective agreements, which also become instruments of this distribution.”
He also highlights further progress with regards to trade unions, which cease to be organizations for the marketing of the workforce.
“Now it (the union) is no longer there to make a deal through the collective agreement about how much I am worth as a worker, how much I can sell my labor for; but rather to discuss how to ensure distribution, and has the power to determine the cost of production and fair prices that ensure everyone can access the service or good generated.
“When they threaten the LOTTT, they threaten the legal basis for the working class to assume its historic responsibility. The right knows what it is attacking.
“That is why the President of Consecomercio (National Council of Commerce and Services), Cipriana Ramos, said that ‘a labor law can not benefit workers'; because labor laws within the framework of capitalism favor capital, they put a price on people, and that is an abuse overcome with the LOTTT.
“In the society we have built, our law became the legal instrument of the working class to assume its historic role of leading society and entering the second part of the revolutionary transformation, which is to replace the bourgeoisie in that role.”
Which immediate concessions would be threatened?
All of them, and that is why the people of Venezuela have already begun to mobilize, because they have seen with objective results what fair distribution of wealth implies, within which we could mention the huge social missions and programs: housing, Barrio Adentro (Inside the Neighborhood), the Robinson Mission for literacy, transport, food, Madres del Barrio (Mothers of the Neighborhood)...
In addition, there are the guarantees set in the law. As never before, today there is a whole chapter devoted to the family. The opposition threatens and will attempt to repeal a law protecting maternity, fathers, mothers in raising, educating, supporting their children, and that creates the conditions to ensure that, within the workplace itself, women can breastfeed, their children have a kindergarten, primary school...
Also regulated is absolute job security. Dismissals must be based on well-defined grounds, because the law does not protect those who don’t work, but those who do. It does not defend the lazy, as the bourgeoisie claims.
Clearly, it is not a capitalist law that dictates the requirements for dismissal, which sets out how much you are worth as a commodity; but a law concerned with the family, maternity, and also the comprehensive and permanent training of workers, as part of the work process itself.
It is a law which defines education as the essence of the social process of work. That is, it does not separate education from work, access to knowledge from the production process. It provides for them to be combined from the plant itself, so you learn, innovate, generate knowledge right there, while you produce.
It is clear that the opposition will not waste time trying to repeal the law, but I think lately they have softened the tone a little; firstly because they would have to go against the Constitution, and secondly because they are witnessing the reactions of the workforce.
This demonstrates that the people are aware of what would be lost if these announcements come to be, and where there are gaps, we are driving a huge public debate, in factories, enterprises, to promote a deeper understanding of the law…
The working class is already discussing our strategy, ever since the very moment of the threat, and there have been mobilizations; because while they (the bourgeois opposition) know full well what they are attacking, we are very aware of what we stand for.
Venezuela1: Chavistas take to the streets of Caracas in support of the Bolivarian Revolution. Photo: Michel Torres Figueredo
