Venezuela unions to launch indefinite strike

About 300 Venezuelan labor unions will launch an indefinite general strike tomorrow to force president Nicolas Maduro to suspend a 30 July constituent assembly election that critics fear will install a military dictatorship.

Venezuela's first general strike since 1958 will continue until Maduro cancels his planned constituent assembly election and instead calls for new presidential elections in which he would not stand for election, strike organizers say.

Ivan Freites, a national director of the FUTPV federation of oil unions and one of the key strike organizers, tells Argus that many oil workers are expected to participate.

The 300 unions joining the strike represent workers employed in sectors including oil and gas, power, transportation, health, education, public entities, and private-sector manufacturing and commerce, Freites said.

"In the case of oil workers, the government will get a strong response," Freites said.

But FUTPV president Wills Rangel, the ruling United Socialist Party's senior labor union chief, tells Argus that the FUTPV does not endorse and will not join the general strike.

State-owned oil company PdV chief executive Eulogio Del Pino maintains that the company's roughly 150,000 workers are unanimously supportive of the constituent assembly and will vote in the 30 July election.

Attorney general Luisa Ortega Diaz, a former regime ally and now an outspoken critic, has condemned the election as illegal and unconstitutional.

Senior energy ministry and PdV officials told Argus separately that all unionized employees of the ministry, PdV employees, including those in joint ventures with foreign companies, and oil services contractors that participate in the strike will be fired immediately and lose all privileges, including food, housing and health insurance assistance.

"Disloyalty and treason will be punished," said a senior PdV political operative.

The looming strike coincides with the launch of a 48-hour nationwide protest in which the opposition democracy coalition (MUD) is urging followers to remain inside their homes from 6am tomorrow until 6am on 29 July.

The US embassy in Caracas issued an unusual advisory last weekend urging all US citizens currently in Venezuela to buy at least a three-day supply of food, and to stay away from protests.

Maduro has warned that the government is "prepared for all scenarios" on 30 July,including "the use of arms" to remain in power if the PSUV loses elections.

The planned 29 July protests are expected to include a peaceful march in Caracas to a still-undisclosed destination, which could include the supreme court, national assembly building or presidential palace — all located in an area of the city controlled by heavily armed civilian collectives allied with the government.

It is unclear whether the labor trike will disrupt PdV's upstream and downstream operations. Many workers are worried about losing their jobs and homes amid the severe economic crisis marked by acute shortages of food and medicine.

Freites and other FUTPV leaders dismiss Del Pino's assurances that all PdV workers support the Maduro regime, and brush aside threatened mass firings.

From January 2016 through end-June 2017 almost 20pc of the workers responsible for PdV's core upstream/downstream operations resigned to take better paying jobs with oil companies mostly outside Venezuela, Freites said. Many have been replaced by workers with no skills to resume the work.

PdV cannot afford to lose its remaining skilled workers, Freites said, noting that over 60pc of the company's payroll of almost 150,000 workers does not labor in the company's core operations. Over a third of the company's current payroll consists of "know-nothings" who get paid to show up at pro-government events or owe their jobs with PdV to political connections, he said.

The impending strike is reminiscent of a 2002-03 mass strike at PdV that was aimed at forcing Maduro´s predecessor Hugo Chavez to resign. But that debilitating strike was led by middle managers at the oil company, most of whom Chavez subsequently fired.