Last Monday, October 23, several groups of people, who are claiming labor-related damages in a conflict that has been going on for years, blocked the entry into the FEMSA plants in Venezuela and into their distribution centers throughout the country. Pablo Castro, president of the National Federation of Beverage Industry Workers (FENTRIBEB) and a worker at Coca-Cola with 40 years of employment, spoke with Sirel about this tense and confusing situation.

 

 

-How did the blockage against FEMSA arise?

-The FEMSA group began operating in the country four years ago, when it acquired PANAMCO, which, prior to withdrawing from the market, compensated its distributors. These distributors were not in a relationship of dependency, but instead had routes assigned to them. They were paid a considerable sum of money. However, a group of these licensees filed a suit claiming damages they believed they were entitled to. PANAMCO responded as required throughout the court proceedings, and proved that the distributors were not dependents of the company. As a result, the court understood that the claims were groundless and ruled to dismiss them. Despite the unfavorable ruling, this group went on to file appeals and seek other legal remedies, increasing the number of claimants by incorporating other transporters, and even truck hands and related workers, and continued their litigation against FEMSA. To date, none of the legal proceedings have found any legal basis for the claims brought by these people.

 

-But how did they achieve such a degree of mobilization if it’s such a small group?

-They appealed to the National Assembly -the Venezuelan Parliament-, which is a political and not a judicial body, where they gained the support of a couple of representatives. Backed by a minority group that is nonetheless part of the government, these people have gone around the country demanding that FEMSA, the company that acquired PANAMCO, respond to their claims. FEMSA even appeared before a parliamentary Committee that was examining the case, and it agreed to pay damages without protesting if any of the claimants were able to come up with sufficient evidence to prove their claims. But it also made it clear that without evidence it would not pay. The representatives I mentioned belong to a radical group headed by Representative Iris Varela who sees in Coca-Cola a symbol of imperialism, and who has declared that if the company does not pay the more than 200 million dollars they claim in damages, they will request that the Assembly pass a law to expropriate the facilities and form a cooperative to produce other beverages. They have a list of companies they want to expropriate, and this strategy has already been deployed successfully in a few other cases, although ultimately the businesses themselves resulted in a commercial failure. But it is ludicrous to try something like this against a company like FEMSA, which employs over eight thousand workers throughout the country, and which has no conflicts overall with the unions, with organized labor. A company with which we are discussing Collective Bargaining Agreements and with which we have maintained a perfectly normal relationship. And in this I include the unions of the sector politically identify with the government, such as the Valencia, Maracaibo, and Caracas unions, as they reject the stance taken by this radical group that has shut down the plants and brought in activists that had nothing to do with the conflict, activist who, dressed in red shirts, have prevented workers from going into the factories and doing their job. All unions, both the FENTRIBEB and the “Bolivarian” unions, have stood as one against this coercive measure, because we believe it threatens our right to work. If this group has a complaint to make, it should file it through the proper channels, but without jeopardizing the jobs of other workers.

 

-What are you planning to do from now on?

-Until now our position has been to act with caution, but a feeling of despair has began to spread among workers. Some members representing the unions affiliated to the Chavista union federation, the UNT, in agreement with our Federation, appeared before the National Assembly yesterday to defend our rights. They described this movement as an “uprising”, and called on the representatives of the ruling party to demand caution and restraint from the representatives that support the claimants. These workers asked the Assembly whether the intention of representative Varela was to cause a violent confrontation between workers, because neither the Bolivarian unions nor the Federation will allow this situation to continue any longer. And they warned the assembly members that, if we had to, we would take back the factories and distribution centers by force. Today, Thursday the 26^th, workers of all levels of the company FEMSA have been gathering peacefully since morning in front of the plants, in an attempt to reach an agreement and end the blockage. We have avoided clashes till now, because we don’t want any violence, but it is very alarming that the government has not acted against such an extortion. This climate of uncertainty has already led other companies to leave the country. More than 500 companies are expected to move to Colombia next year if things don’t change. Finally, this is part of an internal struggle within the ruling party, in which a small radical group is pressuring the government to gain greater political influence.

 

-Is there no reaction from the government to these demands?

-We have been informed that both the National Assembly and the Vice Presidency of the Republic have began to take action to solve this situation. We hope that’s the case, because until that doesn’t happen, we workers will hold our ground in front of the plants and will remain in a state of alert.

Carlos Amorín © Rel-UITA October 31, 2006