President Chavez' indifference to aluminum industry's plight came as "a bucket full of cold water" to CVG union leaders

VHeadline Venezuela News reports: Trade union leaders are applauding a decision NOT to privatize a string of Venezuela's heavy industry units, but say they deplore what is described as the chronic abandonment of Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) aluminum factories in "these revolutionary times" ... but welcome a presidential decree that prolongs an earlier freeze on redundancies and dismissals.

After ten years of President Hugo Chavez' 21st century socialist revolution, the union leaders says they have reasons to applaud government actions but also a number of disappointments, among which is the undeniable fact that the government has virtually abandoned operational investment in state-owned companies at a time of worsening operative crisis in the aluminum sector topped by the worldwide financial crisis.

CVG-Alcasa's Sintralcasa union secretary, Henry Arias says he is convinced that the government has abandoned the aluminum sector and explains that of 200 cells in production Line I and II, there are 46 out of service ... 52 of a total 180 in Cell II are inoperable and Lines IV, 69 of 180 cells are not operative. Meanwhile, CVG-Alcasa workers feel uncertain about salaries, the paralysation retirement benefits and other critical delays in payments. "The reality being faced in state-owned companies is not the only topic of concern since there is a "lingering silence" on the part of top ministers in the national government.

Arias says the majority of workers were very interested to hear about "the
future of aluminum but they saw no light at the end of the tunnel" in President
Chavez' speech during his visit to Ciudad Guayana last Friday. He claims that
the governmental plan is to make Alcasa disappear and then to fuse all of the
companies together as it had done years ago with CAVSA.

CVG-Bauxilum union president, Antonio Rivas does, however, thank the Venezuelan President (Chavez) that the companies have not been privatized and that they have been upgraded to State Property in the 1999 Constitution. He recognizes achievements with regard to labor stability given in the decree to prolonging a statutory firing freeze and says that it gains more relevance in today's economic recession. However, Rivas demands government attention to the aluminum sector in particular and asks for more worker participation in the decision-making process as well as the "materialization" of sector investments that were announced by the President but have not yet been made.

Rivas is concerned over what he describes as utter silence from the President on
the subject of the aluminum companies' future and adds "it appears to me that
there is no plan at hand to recover the state-run companies."

CVG-Carbonorca union general secretary Emilio Campos also regrets that the government does not appear to be concerned about the nation's aluminum companies ... he points out that it's important that these companies should belong to the government, but he complains that they are not being well taken care of ... "the important thing here is not only that they are the property of the nation, but that the government should take good care of them too!" Campos believes that Chavez' seeming "indifference" displayed last weekend came as "a bucket full of cold water" to union leaders across the industry.

VHeadline Venezuela News
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