Strike tests loyalty of Venezuelan oil workers

Venezuela's emboldened opposition launched a 12-hour general strike today in an escalating political confrontation with increasingly unpopular president Nicolas Maduro.

It seems unlikely that state-owned PdV's debilitated upstream and downstream oil operations will be impacted by the strike.

There is "no chance whatsoever of an oil strike," Wills Rangel, president of the government-allied FUTPV oil labor union and PdV board member, told Argus yesterday.

But longtime FUTPV dissidents declined to comment on whether oil workers would join today's action, or the opposition's plan to march to the presidential palace in Caracas on 3 November.

A watershed labor strike at PdV in 2002-3 temporarily reduced production and led to the firing of thousands of skilled workers and managers by late president Hugo Chavez. There seems little chance of such a reprise, because fealty to the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) is now a pillar of the PdV's bloated payroll.

Energy minister and PdV chief executive Eulogio Del Pino made it clear to all of PdV's 140,000 employees that anyone caught protesting against the government will be terminated immediately, an energy ministry official tells Argus.

In an effort to neutralize the labor action, Maduro yesterday announced a 40pc general wage increase for all workers from 1 November, and 20pc wage hike for the military. He threatened to seize all privately owned companies that participate in the strike.

Venezuela's annual inflation is well into the triple digits, and shortages of food and medicine are widespread.

"Any company that closes for (today's) illegal strike will be recovered by the working class," Maduro said. "No one will stop Venezuela, which only wants prosperity and peace."

The opposition democratic unity coalition, or MUD, an alliance of over two dozen political parties that won majority control of the National Assembly in December 2015 elections, called the strike to increase pressure on the Maduro government to reinstate a presidential recall referendum or alternatively schedule immediate new general elections.

A signature process had been underway for months when government-allied courts effectively invalidated it on 20 October. The rulings were officially ratified by the government-controlled CNE electoral authority.

Outspoken National Assembly president Henry Ramos Allup said daily peaceful street protests will continue in Caracas and nationally until 3 November, when the MUD will lead a protest march to the presidential palace in downtown Caracas to inform Maduro of his fate in presidential impeachment proceedings launched in the legislature this week.

Maduro and inner ruling circle have been maneuvering to exploit fractures in the opposition coalition by pressing for "dialogue" even as the regime cracks down on protestors and threatens to jail more opponents. A massive protest march in Caracas on 26 October was peaceful, but security forces and pro-government civilian gunmen attacked marchers in interior cities, resulting in over 200 confirmed injuries and over 300 arrests.

MUD national coordinator Jesus ‘Chuo' Torrealba said the coalition would send representatives to Margarita Island for a Vatican-brokered meeting with government representatives that would constitute the official start of a dialogue if both sides can agree on a common agenda for discussion.

Other opposition leaders such as deposed legislator Maria Corina Machado and jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez say the time for dialogue has passed, and are calling for widespread action on the streets. "This is a dictatorship, and it has to be confronted that way," Machado says.

The likelihood of violent street protests has soared over the past week. The last time anti-government protesters tried to march on Miraflores presidential palace was on 12 April 2002 when at least 19 people were killed.