A-Infos (en) Venezuela: El Libertario warns of possible sentence to the 14 SIDOR workers

After taking part in a demonstration for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of 
contractor “Transportes Camila de SIDOR” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail.
In 05 September 2006 a group of workers and union leaders staged a protest against the 
carrier Camila, a contractor to SIDOR (Siderurgic of the Orinoco), the principal steel 
core business located in Puerto Ordaz, Bolivar state, in Venezuela. The workers were 
protesting the failure to pay wages, and maintain health and safety, as well as the lack 
of tools to accomplish their work. The protest was endorsed by Readers of the “Sindicato 
Único de Trabajadores Siderúrgicos y Similares" (Sutiss, the SIDOR`s union), stopping the 
equipment whose breakdowns and lack of maintenance represented a threat to the integrity 
of the workers, following the safety procedures in the labor standards.

The employers turned to the regional authorities, getting the Public Ministry to issue an 
arrest warrant against three syndical leaders and a group of workers by the National 
Guard, which resulted in a protest by workers of the steel mill.

In this way were arrested Leonel Grisette, a member of the Commission who represents 50% 
workers and 50% of employers on Sutiss; Juan Valor, Secretary of Press and Propaganda, and 
Jhoel Hernández, Secretary of Culture and Sports of that union. The charges against them 
were qualified misappropriation and restricting the freedom to work. A trial started for 
acts defined as crimes after the reform of the Venezuelan Penal Code (Articles 358 to 363) 
in 2005, and the promulgation of the Organic Law of National Security (Article 56) in 
2002: both approved during the Bolivarian government and harmful to the right to strike. 
The three union leaders, along with 11 workers, 14 of Sidor, have been subjected since 
2006 to court procedures, while the trial will end on Wednesday April 29 2009, with the 
possibility of a sentence of between 5 and 10 years in prison.

Remember that SIDOR was nationalized by President Hugo Chávez in April 2008, following the 
revocation of the contract with the Argentina transnational Techint. However, a year 
later, estate control has not meant an improvement in the quality of life of the workers. 
Speaking to “El Libertario”, Leonel Grisette said "It is not true that outsourcing has 
been eliminated and working conditions of the flexible workers are such that they cause 
accidents in 4 to 1 ratio with respect to the other workers. Collective bargaining is 
frozen, and despite the absence of technical safety workers as required by law, we are 
forced to work under irregular conditions". Moreover, nationalization has neutralized the 
current board of Sutiss, which has abandoned the 14 workers on trial, so they had to pay 
out of their own pockets the fees for their counsel, which add up to 100 million bolivars 
(over $ 44,000).

Human rights and labor organizations have been denouncing the criminalization of protest 
in Venezuela, as well as the enactement of laws to restrict the legal right to strike, 
such as the requirements to present themselves in court and the threat of application of 
the Code Criminal Law and Security of the Nation. For anarchists the legal architecture of 
repression is part of the government offensive to end the belligerant autonomy of social 
organizations, with the excuse of fighting coups d'etat and under the rhetorical mask of 
Bolivarian Socialism, whose consequences are suffered by the people. Although the syndical 
organizations split and biased within the inter-bourgeois confrontation that has occurred 
in the country in recent years- do not keep statistics on cases similar to the 14 SIDOR, 
workers in the states of Carabobo, Aragua, Miranda and Tachira have been subject to 
presenting themselves in the courts. In this sense statements by the peasant movement 
Jirajara, located in the state of Yaracuy have counted 103 cases of peasants who after 
participating in protests and land occupations, have been referred to the courts. For the 
union activists of the 14 of SIDOR, these procedures are designed to decapitate the 
militant labor movement, so the possible penalty of 5 or 10 years imprisonment is a 
warning to other activists and advocates for labor and social rights.

Historically the libertarians have argued that the people will not feel better if the 
stick who beats them bears the name of stick of the people. We alert the base 
organizations and collectives of Venezuela and of the world about the potential sentence 
against the 14 SIDOR. As anarchists members of El Libertario we stand in solidarity with 
the Venezuelan workers struggling for their rights, we support militant, honest and 
autonomous unions and will continue to denounce the contradictions of an authoritarian 
government at the service of the interests of globalized capitalism in the struggle for a 
self-managed and revolutionary  grass-roots alternative preferable to the false 
polarization which exists in our country.

El Libertario
ellibertario@nodo50.org
www.nodo50.org/ellibertario (in Spanish, English & others languages)
Caracas, April 27 2009.
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