MASTER'S THESIS M-598
KINGSBURY, Ann Brooke Peterson, INTER NATIONAL LABOR ACTIVITIES IN VENEZUELA.
The American University, M.A., 1964 Political Science, international law and relations
University Microfilms. Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan INTERNATIONAL LABOR ACTIVITIES IN VENEZUELA
by
Ann Brooke Peterson Kingsbury
Submitted to the
Faculty of the School of International Service
of The American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
of
Master of Arts
Signatures of Committee:
Chairman: «
/Dean Af f vhe ^School Date :
1964 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY The American University LIBRARY Washington, D.C. APR Z 81964 WASHINGTON. D. C. FOREWORD
While this paper was in the hands of the typist two events occurred in
Venezuela which have a direct bearing on the conclusions expressed by the writer. First of all, Romulo Betancourt did indeed succeed in turning over the reins of government to his successor. Secondly, the Christian Democratic political group left the coalition with Accion Democratica. In view of the close involvement of the labor movement in Venezuela, as elsewhere in
Latin America, in politics, the withdrawal of the Christian Democratic forces from the coalition will undoubtedly significantly affect the Vene zuelan labor movement. It is to be hoped that this will not be the be ginning of a lack of co-operation and unity between these labor groups, which in the past have been able to build a strong democratic labor move ment and to purge the Communists by combining forces and working together.
Since there is, to the writer's knowledge, no complete study of the
Venezuelan labor movement, bibliographical materials were largely limited to studies of the Latin American labor movement in which Venezuela was men tioned, to newspaper articles on Venezuela, to labor publications such as the Inter-American Bulletin, the Free Labour World. The AIFLD Report. and
Pueblo. and to various conference proceedings of inter-American and inter national labor organizations. Two courses at American University —
International Relations of Latin America and Labor in Latin America, pro vided the basis for placing the development of Venezuelan labor in relation to international labor organizations and activities in context with over-all changes and major shifts in U.S. foreign policies towards Latin America.
Interviews with labor leaders in the Washington, D.C. area were extremely helpful and provided useful information possibly not otherwise available.
It should be emphasized, however, that any conclusions concerning the infor mation provided in these interviews are conclusions of the writer and may or may not coincide with the views of the individuals interviewed.
In addition, the writer would like to express appreciation to the
Committee Chairman and members of the Committee for their guidance and assistance in getting the thesis into final form. TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I . INTRODUCTION...... 1
II. DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LABOR IN LATIN AMERICA...... 5
Relations Between the Democratic and Christian Democratic
Labor Groups...... 18
U. S. Public and Private Labor Programs ...... 19
III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE VENEZUELAN LABOR MOVEMENT...... 23
Accion Democratica (AD), 1945-1948...... '. . . . . 27
Rule of Marcos Perez Jimenez, 1948-1958 ...... 29
Since 1958 — Romulo Betancourt and the AD...... 31
AD/COPEI Versus Communists in Labor ...... 35
Socio-Economic Developments ...... 39
IV. THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION...... 50
V. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST LABOR ORGANIZATIONS...... 57
VI. INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC LABOR ORGANIZATIONS...... 63
Work of the ITS in Venezuela...... 69
International Federation of Petroleum Workers ...... 70
International Metalworkers Federation ...... 71
Miners International Federation ...... 73
Public Services International ...... 73
International Federation of Commercial, Clerical and
Technical Workers ...... 74
International Transport Workers Federation...... 74 CHAPTER PAGE
Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International...... 75
General Workers Union...... 75
International Federation of Food and Allied Workers...... 75
International Federation of Plantation and Allied Agri
cultural Workers ...... 76
International Textile and Garment Workers Union...... 77
VII. CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATIONS...... 80
Relations With CISC and C L A S C ...... 84
Assistance to Labor Education...... 86
Relations Between the Christian and Democratic Labor
Organizations ...... 88
VIII. U.S. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LABOR PROGRAMS...... 92
Labor Education Department of the A I F L D ...... 93
Labor Education Sponsored by AIFLD in Venezuela...... 97
Social Projects Department of AIFLD ...... 100
Venezuelan Co-operation with the Social Projects Department .102
IX...... CONCLUSION...... 105
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 110
APPENDIX : GLOSSARY...... 121
ABSTRACT...... 125 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper will be to discuss the development of
international labor in Latin America, and particularly in Venezuela, as conditioned by and reflected in major U. S. policy decisions towards Latin
America.
Venezuela, which is considered to have one of the most sophisticated labor movements in Latin America, was selected for special study because
its development in the labor field has been characterized by the same
problems of repression by government and retardation by management, by
socio-economic forces, and by Communism that have plagued the development of democratic labor in other Latin American countries. At the same time,
the progress which Venezuela has achieved in the labor field, largely as
the result of assistance by international democratic organizations, pre
sents unique exceptions when governments favorable to labor have been in
power there.
In addition, the fact that Venezuela today appears to be the prime
target of Castro domination in Latin America places particular emphasis on
the need to analyze and evaluate the strength of democratic forces there.
Again Venezuela presents an interesting exception to the traditional Com
munist tactic of attempted take-over through organized labor. Whereas in
Guatemala from 1944 to 1954 Juan Jose Arevalo and particularly Jacobo
Xrbenz used labor to further the International Communist cause, in Venezuela
labor has remained firmly behind the democratic regime and Communist tactics
have consequently taken the form of terrorist efforts aimed at quick political
seizure rather than over-all "grass roots" support through mass organizations
such as organized labor. Venezuela's use of labor against Communism therefore 2. points up the shift of U.S. policy towards Latin America as reflected in the Alliance for Progress, which is aimed at correcting basic socio-economic discrepancies that are frequently the cause of dissatisfaction and dissension on the part of labor. This will be covered in more detail in later chapters.
Another interesting exception in Venezuela has been the coalition in the political field and the co-operation in the labor field of democratic and Christian democratic organizations. This co-ordination of efforts by anti-Communist organizations, although not always complete, has at least in Venezuela presented a unity which has all too frequently been lacking in other Latin American countries. The continuation of this unity therefore presents an interesting facet of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere, and emphasizes the shift of U.S. policy since 1958 towards promoting a more unified front against Communism in the labor field. This also will be covered in more detail in later chapters.
Labor As an area was selected for study because labor, with the one exception of students, is the area which the Communists have most frequently used as a source of strength. This strength, as exemplified in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, has dwindled proportionately as U. S. policies towards Latin America have shifted from "Dollar Diplomacy” and unilateral intervention — past policies which the Communists were quick to exploit — towards a more multilateral approach to settle hemispheric prob lems. Under the Alliance for Progress the U. S. has gone a step further by requiring the governments of Latin America to work themselves to eliminate and correct the socio-economic disparities which have produced discontent among the masses. In this endeavor the U. S. government has enlisted the 3. support of U. S. labor organizations which can work directly with the Latin
American labor groups, as well as the international democratic labor organiza tions, without the stigma of U. S. government intervention. At the same time, the U. S. government has been working along multilateral lines with the
Organization of American States (0A8)* to ease the pain which necessarily results when social revolution takes place. This again will be covered in more detail in later chapters.
In the first chapter the author will trace the development of inter national labor in Latin America as an area, touching briefly on the activities of the early mutual benefit societies and then describing the development of organized labor and its relations to international labor organizations.
The second chapter will discuss the development of the labor movement in Venezuela, and attempt to delineate the similarities and the exceptions which have taken place there as compared with the development of labor as described in the previous chapter. An effort will also be made to under score the accomplishments of the Betancourt administration, particularly in its relation to labor, in easing the difficulties of transition as occa sioned by social revolution when a pro-U. S. government which is also of the democratic left is in power.
Subsequent chapters will describe the work of international labor organizations in Venezuela, including U. S. labor interests, and the impetus which has been given to international democratic labor forces as a result of the shift in U. S. policy towards Latin America in the last few years.
* NOTE: A glossary of abbreviations used in this paper is provided in the Appendix for convenient reference. In the concluding chapter the author will attempt to evaluate the over-all achievements to date in the labor field in Latin America, and particularly in Venezuela, in relation to U. S. policies in the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere. An effort will also be made to evaluate the role which labor can play in carrying out and strengthening the social revolution in Latin America along lines which U. S. policy is now taking
in the form of the Alliance for Progress. CHAPTER II
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LABOR IN LATIN AMERICA
Organized labor in Latin America received its earliest impetus from
European immigrants who brought to the Western Hemisphere the teachings of the anarcho-syndicalists and the mutual benefit societies that originated in
Europe. Their activities were foe the most part limited to promoting dis ability and death benefits, primarily among artisans and the first factory workers, in specialized segments of the newly emerging industrialized popula tion. They also served as a sort of social center for immigrants not yet adjusted to their new environment who wished to perpetuate the language and customs of their European heritage. These societies in Latin America were concentrated in the southern end of the hemisphere where immigration was 1 the heaviest.
In 1914 the Continental Association of American Workers (ACAT) was founded in Buenos Aires, Argentina by labor groups from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. ACAT affiliated with the International Confederation of Workers
(CIT) which had its headquarters in Toulouse, France and which advocated the use of the general strike to overthrow governments. By 1935 ACAT had ceased 2 to exist.
During the first part of the twentieth century U.S. security interests in hemispheric isolation, heightened by increased U.S. private investments in Latin America, resulted in the "Big Stick" and "Dollar Diplomacy" policies
^ Miles Galvin, Unionism in Latin America. Bulletin 45, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornel University. October 1962. p. 13-14.
^ Lectures, Labor in Latin America, Fall Semester 1962, American University, Washington, D.C. 6. towards Latin America, which existed until the Montevideo Conference in 1933 at which the U.S. accepted, albeit with reservation, the principle of non intervention and began to recognize the need for multilateralism in dealing with Latin America. During this period the brief contact between U.S. and
Latin American labor organizations, which will be covered later in this chap ter, was hampered by the fact that U.S. policies were concerned only with governments, rather than with population segments,and socio-economic dis- 3 parities, and that U.S. policies were resented in Latin America.
At the same time the Communists were working to consolidate their position in Latin America by dealing directly with the industrialized and to some extent the rural segments of the population. Their efforts were made easier by the fact that they could identify themselves with the people in opposition to U.S. policies of unilateral intervention and "Dollar
Diplomacy." In 1929 in Montevideo, Uruguay the Communists formed the Trade
Union Confederation of Latin America (CSLA) , which affiliated to the Third
International. Under the direction of the Cominform the CSLA concentrated its activities in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Venezuela, Peru and other countries where significant foreign investments existed. By 1941 the CSLA, with the assistance of the Communist-dominated French trade union movement, had reorganized into the Latin American Confederation of Workers (CTAL), based on the Soviet philosophy of organizing the workers politically. At its founding congress in Mexico City the CTAL was represented by all Latin
American countries except Brazil, whose government at that time prohibited international affiliation by a Brazilian confederation. Vicente Lombardo
Toledano, who became the first president of the CTAL, still holds this position.
^ Ibid. Francisco Perez Leros, an Argentine, was the first vice-president; Bernardo
Ibanez, Chilean Communist who has since broken with the Communist Party,
was the second vice-president; Guillermo Rodriguez of Colombia was the
third vice-president; and Lazaro Pena of Cuba, whose present power struggle
with Lombardo Toledano will be covered in a later chapter, was the fourth
vice-president and later the executive vice-president* Expenses of the
CTAL were paid by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) of Lombardo
Toledano in Mexico City. The CTAL called for the right to strike and nego
tiate collective contracts, and for freedom of the press. It restricted
its membership to national centrals whose constitutions adopted the same 4 tactics and agreed to the same ends as the CTAL.
By 1944 when the CTAL held its third congress in Cali, Colombia It
had consolidated its position as the spokesman for organized labor in
Latin America. Forty-five official delegates representing ninety-five per
cent of the trade unions in Latin America were present, as well as union
leaders from Great Britain, the U.S. CIO, Russia and France. Resolutions
adopted at the Cali Congress followed the Soviet attitude at the San Francisco
Conference in opposing efforts to establish equality of all countries in a
world security organization. Also at Cali in 1944 the first splits within
the Communist leadership became evident when P^rez Leros resigned as first
vice-president and the Argentine confederation left the congress and took an
anti-Communist position. The rifts within the CTAL will be covered later in
this chapter. When the International Labor Organization (ILO) met in 1944
^ Luis Alberto Honge, "The Trade Union Scene," Free Labour World, Vol. 42, December 1953, p. 26; Lectures, Labor In Latin America. at Philadelphia Lombardo Toledano of the CTAL was accepted as the sole repre sentative of all organized labor in Latin America and was elected a member of the ILO Governing Body. In 1945 the CTAL Joined the World Federation of
Trade Unions (WFTU), the Communist trade union movement which at that point represented most of the labor confederations of the world. The CTAL, with no dues paying members, was given four seats on the executive board of the
WFTU as compared with three seats each for the U.S. , Great Britain and Russia,
By the end of World War II Communist influence on Latin American labor had reached its peak. Communist leaders were in control of the leading labor organizations in at least nine Latin American countries and were in fluential in seven others, the only exceptions being Argentina, the Dominican
Republic, Honduras and El Salvador. Their political parties had influence in almost every country and they had members of congress in six South
American countries, Including Venezuela, and in three Central American coun tries. The splits which destroyed the power of the CTAL paralleled the splits among war-time allies and the shift in U.S. policy towards inter-
American military and political co-operation.^
World War II heightened the security interests of U.S. policy in streng thening relations with Latin America. At the Rio de Janeiro Conference in
1942 provisions were made for the mutual exchange of military bases and strategic materials which the U.S. needed in return for U.S. protection and
® Galvin, Unionism in Latin America, p. 20j Lectures, Labor in Latin America.
® Ibid; John J. Considine, New Horizons in Latin America. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1958, p.231. 9. financial assistance to Latin America. This led to aid in modernizing
Latin American economies to develop new sources of wealth. The maintenance of political stability sympathetic to U.S. aims thus became a cornerstone of U.S. policy in Latin America. It also resulted in enshrining a new officer corps as a political elite which was frequently not sympathetic to labor — a factor which would necessitate another shift in U.S. policy in the late 1950*s and early 1960's,*^
U.S. emphasis on inter-American security needs during World War II led Latin America, which had been excluded from the Dunbarton Oaks Conference, to take the initiative at Chapultepeo in early 1945 in forming an inter-
American system which should survive apart from the United Nations, and to take the lead at the San Francisco Conference in insisting on the establish ment of such an organization. Thusi when the GAS was established at Bogota in 1948, multilateralism as a method of promoting inter-American harmony had been accepted in principle by both the U.S. and Latin America. At the same time, Latin American governments, which had previously been resentful 8 of the U.S., now began to realize the need for mutual co-operation.
The efforts at co-operation between Latin America and the U.S., aided by U.S. acceptance of inter-American unity based on equality of national governments in the Western Hemisphere, had a direct relationship with the decline of the CTAL after 1945. The disaffiliation of the Argentine con federation at Cali in 1944, although prompted more by the influence of Juan
^ Lectures, International Relations of Latin America.
® Ibid. 10.
Peron on Argentine labor than on rapprochement with the U.S., was neverthe less followed by disaffiliations by other national confederations whose governments favored the principle of inter-Amerlean co-operation and rejected domination by a regional labor organization with European alignment.
Thus today the CTAL is a weak organization which the Communists may try to replace. The only national confederation affiliated to the CTAL is the Ecuadorean. Other affiliates of the CTAL today include about 4,000 in
Costa Rica; the Mexican confederation of urban and land workers, a group numbering about 10,000 members; some 40,000 members of a Uruguayan federa- 9 tion; etc.
Decline in Communist influence on the Latin American labor movement has been due to a great extent to anti-Communist positions taken by Latin
American governments as reflected in resolutions adopted at the OAS con ferences. This has been spearheaded by U.S. efforts resulting from U.S. policies following World War II, as discussed earlier in this chapter.
Another factor is that several labor organizations in Latin America have split along Communist-Sociai^ist lines as labor leaders, in order to adhere to Party directives, have been forced into taking contradictory stands on local and international issues which in turn have discredited them with the rank-and-file in the labor unions. This has led to the creation of the democratic left, or social democratic, which in Venezuela and other countries of Latin America has been taking the lead in social reform,
g Lectures, Labor in Latin America.
Galvin, Unionism in Latin America, p.20. 11.
A third factor which has been instrumental in lessening Communist in fluence is the work of the democratic international labor organizations — the ICFTÜ/ORIT/ITS and the CISC/CLASC, and U.S. labor interests. Their work in Latin America, particularly since the U.S. under the Alliance for
Progress policy has taken the lead, has been a strong deterrent to Communistfi controlled labor movements. The next section of this chapter will discuss the efforts of these organizations in Latin America, beginning with the
Pan American Federation of Labor (PAFL).
The PAFL was formed in 1817 in Texas by Samuel Gompers of the American
Federation of Labor (AFL) and Luis Horones, the Mexican Minister of Labor and Commerce from 1924 to 1928 and leader of the Regional Confederation of
Mexican Workers (CROM). CROM, AFL and small unions in Cuba, Colombia,
Venezuela and Ecuador were attracted to the PAFL, which was headquartered in Washington, D.C. Its president was the Cuban, Carlos Loviera. The PAFL was ineffective partly because of U.S. policies then existing towards Latin
America, although it did establish better working conditions for workers migrating from one country to another. At the 1921 conference in Mexico City
Latin American delegates attacked the PAFL as an instrument of U.S. "Dollar
Diplomacy" because it had not taken a stronger stand against U.S. interven- 11 tion in Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
In July 1929 the PAFL proposed to the International Federation of Trade
Unions (IFTU) that they negotiate an agreement to divide the world into two spheres of influence, whereby the PAFL would have exclusive jurisdiction in
lectures. Labor in Latin America. 12. organizing the trade unions of the American continents and the IFTU would confine its activities in the labor field to Europe and Asia. This proposal was never implemented, but it did serve as an indication of the desire for regional autonomy in the labor field. In 1930 the PAFL was dissolved in
Habana, Cuba because of pressure from Lazaro Pena and Vicente Lombardo
Toledano. Its primary contribution was in bringing U.S. and Mexican labor closer together, in aiding trade unionism in the Caribbean, and in providing 12 a focal point for discussion.
Communist domination of the Latin American labor movement led to the formation in 1948 at Lima, Peru of the Inter-American Confederation of
Labor (CIT) as a counter-organization to the CTAL. It was sponsored by
Bernardo Ibafiez of Chile, who became its first president, Francisco Aguirre of (hiba, and George Me any of the AFL. Serafino Romualdi became the first
Inter-American Representative of the AFL for Latin America. Following the establishment of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTÜ) in London in 1949, when the IFTU affiliates ended their brief membership in the WFTU, the CIT was dissolved and reorganized in 1951 into the Regional
Organization of Inter-American Workers (GRIT). On the Executive Committee were a president, secretary-general, another officer, a vice-president from
Canada and the U.S., and a third vice-president named by the United Mine 13 Workers. U.S. and Cuban unions controlled the purse strings.
During the 1950's ORIT was plagued with dissensions and personality
Ibid; Walter Schevenels, Forty-Five Years; International Federation of Trade Unions. 1901-1945. Brussels, p. 167. 13 Lectures I Labor ia Latin America ^ 13. clashes among Its leaders. Conflict developed at Its Inaugural congress over where the headquarters would be located. Aguirre favored Habana, and when the congress voted for Aguirre he became secretary-general and head quarters were established in Cuba. In 1953 ORIT headquarters were moved to
Mexico City. Aguirre was replaced as president by a Cuban, Tellechea, and
Luis Alberto Monge of Costa Rica became secretary-general. Honge favored a revolutionary position against the Batista regime in Cuba, whereas Telle chea and some U.S. elements took a neutral position towards Batista. In
1957 Alfonso Sanchez Madariaga of Mexico became secretary-general. In 1961 sitnchez Madariaga became president and Arturo Juaregui Hurtado of Peru 14 became secretary-general.
ORIT claims a membership of over 28 million workers in the Western
Hemisphere from fifty-two national centers, almost half the total membership of fifty-seven million workers claimed by its parent organization, the ICFTU,
ORIT has affiliates in almost every country in Latin America, including the
Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV), the two confederations in
Colombia, the confederations of Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, the North Coast Unions in Honduras, the CTM and an independent of Mexico, the
Confederation of Free Trade Union Workers of Ecuador (CEOSL), the Confederation of Trade Unions of Uruguay (CSU), and others. All the ORIT affiliates issued declarations supporting the U.S. position regarding Soviet missiles in Cuba.^^
In May 1954 in Mexico City ORIT organized the first conference of demo-
Ibid.
Ibid; IQj'i'u Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports. Seventh World Congress, Berlin, 5-13 July 1962. Page 256-257. 14. cratlc Imbdr leaders la exile, which became known as the Committee of Labor
Exiles of Latin America (CESDAL). The relations of this committee with
Venezuelan exiles from the Perez Jimenez regime will be discussed in the following chapter. ORIT also operates a trade union school in Cuernavaca,
Mexico, and has regional offices in Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and Barbados.
Its Executive Board met in San Jose in 1954, in Miami, Florida in 1956, in
Mexico in 1957, in Washington, D.C. in 1958, in Mexico in 1959, and in Sdè
Paulo in 1962.
Eight of the eighteen International Trade Secretariats (ITS) operate in Latin America. They work in co-ordination with the ICFTU and the ORIT.
The Inter-Amerlean Representatives of all but two of these came to their posts from U.S. unions. The work of the ITS will be further discussed in later chapters.
ORIT and the ITS are pledged to co-operate in Latin America, and their relations today, particularly since the impact of U.S. interest through the
Alliance for Progress has begun to be felt, are considered to be good. This was not true during the 1950*s when ORIT, newly formed and characterized by a lack of a positive, realistic program, sought to compete with the ITS, some of which had been working efficiently for almost fifty years. Also, as will be pointed out in a later chapter, the ITS, having in some measure been responsible for the disaffiliation of the IFTU affiliates from the WFTU in 1949, probably adopted, and with perhaps some Justification, a condescending attitude towards the new regional organization which could not settle its own 17 internal disputes.
Galvin, Unionism in Latin America, p.23
Ibid; Schevenels, Forty-Five Years; International Federation of Trade Unions. 1901-1945; Interview, Andrew C. HcLellan, International Affairs Director, AFL/CIO, on 10 December 1963. 15. This situation has changed today, particularly through the efforts of
American labor organizations many of which are themselves affiliated to the appropriate ITS as well as to the AFL/CIO. ORIT co-operated with the Inter national Federation of Petroleum Workers (IFPW) In publishing a bulletin in
Spanish and English. In the field of economic research, which has been virtually non-existent in Latin America, ORIT and the ITS have been working together to interest the workers in learning something about the economic position of the companies with which they are dealing. In addition, many of the ITS have independent training programs in Latin America. In 1959 the
International Federation of Postal, Telegraph and Telecommunications Workers
(PTTI) trained fifteen Latin Americans in the techniques of workers* education 18 and several of these men are now working full-time throughout Latin America.
ORIT works closely with the ICFTU in co-ordinating regional activities in the Western Hemisphere, although again since the shift in U.g. policy under the Alliance for Progress there has been closer co-operation between
ORIT and U.S. labor interests than between ORIT and the ICFTU, and by 1961 the ICFTU no longer had any unilateral programs in Latin America. At the third congress of ORIT in 1955 at San Jose, Costa Rica it was stated that the ORIT offices in Rio de Janeiro and Santiago were financed almost completely by the ICFTU. In the report by the ICFTU on its activities for 1960-1962,
ICFTU subsidies to regional organizations were reported as follows: 17.6 per cent of the ICFTU budget in 1959, of which ORIT received about 20 per cent; 18.6 per cent in 1960, of which ORIT got about nine per cent; and 17.5 per cent in 1961, of which Latin America again received about nine per cent.
Galvin, Unionism in Latin America, p.47-48; Secretary-General's Report. Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers of the ICFTU. Third Continental Congress. San Jose. Costa Rica. April 1955. p.36 16.
Bulk of ICFTU financial assistance during this period went to the Asian regional machinery, with the African groups receiving the second highest amount, Latin
America the third, and Europe the smallest amount. On the other hand, affilia tion fees to the ICFTU from Latin America were reported as less than one per cent of the total received in 1959; about two-tenths of one per cent in 1960; 19 and about three-tenths of one per cent in 1961.
Since World War II the International Federation of Christian Trade
Unions (IFCTU, or CISC)* has been working to establish a third position against both Capitalism and Communism. Founded at The Hague in 1920 with
P.J.S. Serrarens of the Netherlands as secretary-general, the seat of the
CISC was moved to Brussels, Belgium in 1953. Serrarens retired in 1952 and was succeeded by August Vanistendael of Belgium, the incumbent secretary- general. Maurice Bouladoux of France is the present CISC president, having 20 succeeded Gaston Tessier of France who died in 1960.
CISC includes both Protestant and Catholic unions, as well as associa tions of Catholic workers and exile groups which do not carry out trade union functions. It maintains regional organizations for Africa, Europe
Secretary-General's Report. Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers of the ICFTU. Third Continental Congress. San Jose. Costa Rica. April 1955. p. 26; ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports. Seventh World Congress, Berlin, 5-13 July 1962.
* The initials CISC for the French spelling of the Christian federation will be used in this paper in order to avoid confusion with the ICFTU - International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. 20 Directory of International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (CISC) , U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Affairs, May 1963. p.iii-iv. 17. and Latin America and a regional trade union center for Asia. It has con sultative status with a number of United Nations agencies and various European regional bodies, and co-operates with the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU) in the Trade Union Advisory Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It also has eleven trade inter nationals with largely European membership; only two of these operate in 21 Latin America.
The regional affiliate of CISC for Latin America, CLASC, was founded at
Santiago, Chile on December 8, 1954. It includes all CISC affiliates in the Latin American and Caribbean areas as well as two regional Trade Inter nationals — the Latin American Federation of Transport Workers, Fishermen,
Stevedores, Seamen, Dockworkers, and Banana Workers, and a Peasant Federation of Latin America. CLASC has held four congresses, each preceded by a seminar.
The fourth regional congress was held in Caracas in November 1962. Jos^
Goldsack Donoso of Chile is president of CLASC; Emilio Maspero of Argentina is secretary-general, and also executive secretary for the Caribbean with headquarters in Caracas; and Alfredo De Pacce of Argentina is assistant secre tary-general. Nicholas Pollard of British Honduras, an assistant to Maspero, now has Jurisdiction over the Christian labor movement in Venezuela and the
Caribbean. This will be covered in more detail in the chapter on relations between Venezuelan labor and the CLASC. CXASC has offices in Santiago (head quarters), Caracas and Buenos Aires. It issues three publications irregpilarly,
Noticiero Obrero Latlnoamericano. published in English, French, Portuguese and / 22 Spanish; the Boletin Informative de la CLASC; and the Informative de Prensa.
Directory of International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (CISC) , May 1963, p.iii-iv. 22 Ibid, p. 10 18.
I. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC AND CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC LABOR GROUPS
All too often there has been a lack of unity between the democratic and
the Christian democratic labor organizations, on national as well as re
gional and international levels.
At the November 1951 meetings of the Three Internationals — the ICFTU
in Brussels, the CISC in Vienna, and the WFTU in Berlin — an exchange of
verbal assaults took place between the labor leaders. The ICFTU stated that
it wished to make the Christian confederation realize that a firm, clear cut
attitude was necessary to further the cause of freedom and Christian civiliza
tion, and that a hesitant or ill-timed attitude, such as CISC had displayed,
was of decided service to the cause of Soviet imperialism. Gaston Tessier,
then president of CISC, retorted that he was proud of his organization's 23 poverty which was a guarantee of independence.
On the regional level there has been conflict between CLASC and ORIT,
despite the fact that both are seeking the same ends of a democratic and
free labor movement. The Catholic hierarchies in Venezuela, Argentina,
Colombia and Cuba (prior to Fidel Castro) have issued public statements con
cerning the rights of the people to struggle for justice and freedom against
dictatorships. Yet frequently the Catholic-dominated unions and confederations
have refused to participate in ORIT sponsored training programs, and there
have been personality clashes between ORIT and CLASC leaders which inevitably
work to further the Communist cause. Where the reverse has been true, as in
the case of Venezuela in 1960-1961, the co-operation between democratic forces 24 has worked to the detriment of the Communists.
23 __ "The Christian Trade Unions, the ICFTU and Present Day Events." Free Labour World. Vol. 21, March 1952, p. 2; "Three Internationales." Free Labour World. Vol. 2, No. 18, December 1951, p.5. 24 Considine, New Horizons in Latin America, p.233 19.
II. U.S. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LABOR PROGRAMS
From 1924 to 1944 contact between labor organizations of the U.S. and
Latin America was practically nonexistent, except for the somewhat negligible
efforts of the PAFL and the largely fraternal relationship which existed for
a few years after 1938 between the CIO and the CTAL. The CIO was apparently well received by the Latin labor groups, but its actual contact with them and
influence on them was limited. Also, as discussed earlier, U.S. foreign
policies towards Latin America during this period did not tend to create
amicable relations with Latin labor groups and governments, but instead
created an identification of U.S. labor with U.S. government policies.
After 1948, when the AFL played a leading role in the formation of the
CIT, the Latin American Representative of the AFL was instrumental in the
establishment of the Latin American Union Leadership Training Program at the
University of Puerto Rico in 1952 under the auspices of ORIT. The CIO also
had ah Inter-American Representative working in Latin America, and when the
AFL and CIO merged the CIO representative became the Associate Inter-American 25 Representative of the AFL/CIO.
In 1962 a Training Program for Labor Educators was organized at the In
stitute in Puerto Rico in co-operation with the ITS and with the technical
support of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations of Cornell University.
This program is financed by the Marshall Foundation and trains about thirty
Latin American educational specialists annually. Since 1959 the New York
State School of Industrial and Labor Relations has been assisting the University
of Chile to organize a Department of Labor Relations, among whose functions are
Galvin, Unionism in Latin America, p.22 20.
extension courses for trade union groups. Also, the United Mine Workers of
America (UMW) has for a number of years been in touch with Latin American miners* unions through an international representative who has traveled
throughout Latin America. The Inter-American Mine-Workers Federation has / 26 held two congresses, one in Lima in 1957 and another in Bogota in 1962.
At the same time U.S. policies towards Latin America were shifting.
In the early 1940*s the first U.S. Labor Attache to Latin America was ap
pointed, possibly as a result of the growing tendency by the U.S. after World
War II to recognize the importance of mass organizations as political enti
ties. Prior to World War II, as has been pointed out earlier, the U.S. had
dealt with governments rather than with representative groups within the
societies. For the next fifteen years, or until about 1958, the U.S.,
although dealing with governments, was also working with Latin American coun
tries through the Institute for Inter-American Affairs and later the Point IV
program on servicios set up outside the government to which both the U.S. and
the Latin American governments contributed, for the purpose of eradicating
malaria, introducing sanitation measures, etc. However, although these
efforts frequently produced good results and built up efficient operations
within the government department or organization which had been so assisted,
they did not provide the Latin American governments with the overall guidance
needed to strengthen their economies, nor did they provide training so that
the leaders of government could plan their programs to provide necessary 27 services for their people.
Ibid, p.23 and p.47-48. 27 Lectures, Labor in Latin America. 21.
Therefore when U.S. policy shifted to a recognition of the need to strike at the basic underlying causes of social upheaval in Latin America, it was necessary to create a labor organization to work with labor segments of the
Latin American population. In 1960 the American Institute for Free Labor
Development (AIFLD) was founded, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., as a non-profit corporation supported by U.S. labor and management groups for the purpose of providing education in free democratic labor concepts to union leaders of Latin America. Following the implementation of the Alliance for
Progress the functions of the AIFLD were extended to include social projects, and government funds were made available through the Agency for International
Development. The AIFLD has established trade union centers in twelve Latin
American countries, including Venezuela, and has five other centers projected for the immediate future, including one for Central America which will cover the six Isthmian countries. Its two departments — for Social Projects and
Education -- are mechanisms to provide new tools for Latin American trade 28 unions and to help build a more dynamic role for democratic trade unionism.
Other government agencies which have been assisting the Latin American labor movement are the U.S. Information Agency, which provides grants to permit Latin American labor leaders to visit the United States; and the AID.
AID has contracted with the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) for the development of 550 credit unions, and is working with the International
Development Bank (IDE) to obtain supervised credit to assist workers in ob taining housing. AID has also under study an Inter-American Co-operative
28 Ibid. 22.
Banking System which would serve as a credit system to finance national co- 29 operative movements throughout the hemisphere.
Thus, the effectiveness of U.S. and other democratic labor organizations is directly related to the effectiveness of U.S. governmental policies and their acceptance in Latin America. Communist monopoly of the labor field in Latin America prior to 1945 was considerably assisted by the fact that U.S. policies were based on security interests in hemispheric isolation as expressed in "Dollar Diplomacy" and the "Big Stick," which helped to negate any effec tiveness the fledgling PAFL might have achieved. On the other hand, U.S. policy shifts after World War II towards inter-American military and political co-operation and multilateral action through the GAS to strengthen inter-
American security needs paved the way for active implementation of U.S. public and private labor programs in Latin America. This in turn has served to improve the relations and degree of co-operation between GRIT and the
ITS, to which most of the U.S. labor unions are affiliated; it will also, hopefully, eventually improve the relations between the democratic and Chris tian democratic labor organizations in Latin America, which, with the notable exception of Venezuela, have not been too cordial. At the same time, Com munist influence on the Latin American labor movement has been proportionately declining as the democratic labor programs expand and strengthen. This has been particularly true in the case of Venezuela, which will be covered in the next chapter.
Ibid. CHAPTER III
DEVELOPMENT OF THE VENEZUELAN LABOR MOVEMENT
This chapter will discuss the development of the Venezuelan labor movement — its complete repression by oppressive dictatorships until 1958, with the brief exception of the years 1945-1948; its early retardation by paternalistic, largely foreign-owned companies and its present favorable relations with management; its socio-economic problems resulting from over- dependence on the petroleum industry; and the Influence of Communist organi zations, and particularly the pro-Castro Armed Forces for National Libera tion (FALN) which seeks to wrest control of the Venezuelan government through tactics of terrorism by a small but highly disciplined organization directed from Cuba. Labor came to power under the democratic left in 1945, was then virtually eliminated between 1948 and 1958 by the dictator Perez
Jiménez, and finally emerged in 1958 as the base support of Romulo Betan court and the Accion Democratica (AD) party. Its development in Venezuela demonstrates many of the characteristics of organized labor elsewhere in
Latin America, and serves as a case study for an evaluation of the overall labor movement in the Western Hemisphere today.
Not until 1945 was any significant legislation passed in Venezuela to encourage the development of democratic trade unions. Some legislation was passed on freedom of contracts during the reign of General Paez from
1831-1835, but the ruling creditor class was permitted to charge unlimited
interest rates and stern legal means were provided for the collection of 1 debts. The death penalty was provided for political crimes, the Church
Edwin Lieuwen, Venezuela. Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto, 1961, p. 34. (Published under the auspices of the Royal Institute for International Affairs.) 24, lost its tax and other Immunities, and the Army was rendered subservient to the central government. Stability set it and national credit was finally established abroad.
During the years 1899 to 1944 Venezuela was ruled by the so-called tachirense caudillos. from the State of Tachira. These oligarchs estab lished a high standard for the upper class strata of Venezuelan society but permitted the bulk of the people to exist on sub-marginal standards.
Juan Vicente Gomez, who ruled from 1908 to 1935, brought in Royal Dutch
Shell before World War 1, and then the U. S. and British oil companies.
Gomez permitted these companies to draft the kind of petroleum legislation which they wished and then he decreed it the law of the country. Petro
leum prosperity thus came to mean rapid price increases while wages lagged 2 behind.
Opposition to Gomez developed, and centered among students at Central
University in Caracas. The Generation of 1928, classmates at the University who were later to play leading roles in Venezuela, included Romulo Betan
court, Jovito Villalba, Gustavo Machado, even then a leading Communist and
today one of the wealthiest men in Venezuela, and others. In March 1941
the Generation of 1928 formed the Communist Party of Venezuela, which at
that time represented the only organized opposition to the dictatorship.
The years 1935-1940 in Venezuela were the history of the Communist Party 3 and of splits from the Communist Party.
2 Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 48-49. 3 Lectures, Labor in Latin America. 25.
In 1935 the Generation of 1928 formed unions among the petroleum workers. When Gomez died in 1935 labor unrest developed and resulted the following year in a spontaneous strike in the oil fields. Employers found they had no one with whom to negotiate and began to realize the need for labor organizations with which grievances could be discussed and negotiated.
This experience was the beginning of present progressive attitudes in the management of domestic and foreign companies in Venezuela. Management- 4 labor relations will be covered in more detail later in this chapter.
On 22 January 1937 Eleazar Lopez Contreras, who took over when Gomez died, decreed the strike ended, gave the workers a small increase and ordered them all back to work. Labor agitators were expelled and the re cently organized Trade Union Congress was dissolved.
In the first flush of amity when Lopez came into office, several labor-leftist parties quickly formed as new political entities: The
Venezuelan Organization (ORVE) and the Bolivarian Civic Group (ACB). As
L^pez settled into office, the ORVE was outlawed, and then regrouped itself into two parties: The Democratic National Party (PDN), which advocated trade union organization, labor legislation, low-cost housing, agrarian reform, and a fundamental change in the government's petroleum policy; and the Communist Party, which was recreated clandestinely in 1937 as an affiliate of the Communist International. The PDN and the Communist Party competed for control of the embryonic labor movement and attempted to gain 5 support among the general populace.
^ Ibid. 5 Porter, Charles O . and Alexander, Robert J ., The Struggle for Democracy in Latin America. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1961, p. 112; also, Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 64. 26.
In 1941 the Communist Party was legalized and became the Popular Union
(UP). Dissension between Gustavo Machado and the Black Communists, and
Juan Batista Fuenmayor and the Red Communists — so-called because of the electoral color assigned to it — caused Batista Fuenmayor to withdraw and form the Unitarian Communist Party (PCU). The PDN then reorganized itself
Into the Democratic Action (AD) , and sent for Betancourt to return from exile in Chile to direct the new party.
By 1944 a group of junior military officers had formed the Patriotic
Military Union (UPM) to overthrow the regime of President Medina. Major
Marcos Perez Jimenez, spokesman for the UPM, invited AD to Join in the up rising and requested Betancourt to take charge of the new government.
Betancourt selected a seven-man junta that included two military, three
AD and one independent. A new electoral law was passed on 15 March 1946 which granted free speech, freedom of press and assembly, and universal suffrage for everyone over eighteen years of age.
Other political parties quickly formed: The Republican Democratic
Union (URD) , more leftist than the AD but not so left-wing as the Communists, which was led by Jovito Villalba, Betancourt’s friend, collaborator and orator during the days of the Generation of 1928, and later a political rival of Betancourt; and the Independent Committee for Political and Elec toral Organization (COPED, a Christian Socialist Party. During the AD regime of 1945-1948, as again in the years since 1958, COPEI has constituted the principal opposition to AD but has at the same time remained in coalition 6 with AD.
® Porter and Alexander, The Struggle for Democracy in Latin America, p.112; Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela. Bureau of Labor Statistics Report No. 212, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., December 1961, p. 13. 27.
In the October 1946 elections AD nominated the novelist Romulo Gallegos,
COPEI put up Rafael Caldera, who also promised more benefits for labor, and the Communists put up Gustavo Machado. Gallegos and the AD won by a land slide; the new government took office on 15 February 1948 and the Junta ceased to exist.
I. ACCION DEMOCRATICA (AD), 1945-1948
Betancourt Integrated labor into the AD party as one of the main elements of his power, and introduced legislation and reforms to bring about long over due benefits to the labor segment of the population. The new Constitution of
5 July 1947 provided specific guarantees to organized labor under articles
53-61. A Ministry of Labor was created with Raul Leoni as Minister of Labor, and a rash of new trade unions — some 500 local unions and thirteen national federations — were formed in 1946. Government intervention was frequent and was always on behalf of labor. On 14 June 1946 an eighteen-month col lective contract was promulgated regulating conditions of work in the entire petroleum industry. The contract included substantial wage increases, pay ment for a weekly rest day and for travel time, special compensation for night work, and additional hospitalization benefits. When this contract expired at the end of 1947 the AD government again guided the petroleum in dustry towards agreement on a new three year collective contract which con- 7 tained extensive additional gains for labor.
Meanwhile a conflict between the AD and Communist Party forcontrol of the labor movement had reached a climax. The Confederation of Venezuelan
^ Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 79. 28.
Workers (CTV), which had originally been organized by the CTAL, claimed a membership of some 200,000, largely skilled craftsmen, printers, tailors, etc. with no broad industrial base. In 1944 the AD challenged the Communists for control of the CTV. President Medina’s neutral position which favored neither side was considered partially responsible for his downfall. When
AD came into power it was able to displace the Communists, and in 1947 the
CTV, purged of most of its Communist membership, was recreated with Perez
Salinas as the first AD president.
The AD during the years 1945-1948 also sought to bring socio-economic benefits to the masses in Venezuela. A fifty-fifty agreement was worked out in the petroleum industry to limit profits from private capital in the
Venezuelan oil industry, and it was planned to increase the percentage to sixty-forty at the expense of private investors. AD ruled that the staffs of foreign companies operating in Venezuela must be seventy-five per cent
Venezuelan. Immigration was encouraged, and an estimated 35-40,000
European refugees came into the country between 1946 and 1948. Many of these went into farming areas created by irrigation projects in northern
Venezuela. Others settled in urban centers where they played an important g role as entrepreneurs in developing Venezuela’s manufacturing industry.
In addition, in 1948 AD passed the Agrarian Reform Law. It streng thened the public health and sanitation programs, provided for new hospital construction and for a housing program. The Government gave greatly ex panding credits to the Workers’ Bank, and in May 1946 created the Venezuelan
O The Economic Development of Venezuela. Published for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development by The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1961, p. 214. 29.
Development Corporation (VDC) to Increase agricultural production and develop 9 new industries.
The rapidity of these reforms, completely new to Venezuela and tinged at that time with earlier leftist connections of many of the Venezuelan leaders, was bound to cause dissension within the upper classes and the military elite which suddenly found their positions and prestige undermined by the actions of the AD regime. In 1948 the government was toppled by a military coup led by General Delgado Chabauld and his son-in-law, Marcos
Perez Jiménez, who three years earlier had offered the power of government to Betancourt. CTV headquarters was raided by the police, the CTV and its affiliates were dissolved by government decree in February 1949, and labor leaders were imprisoned. Betancourt and Gallegos were exiled, and a three- man military junta established. For the next ten years a military-type stagnant dictatorship was to exist in Venezuela. The fact that this regime maintained extremely amicable relations with the U.S., coupled with the fact that the previous AD regime had taken measures and had been-con templating additional measures which were not in the best interests of the, „
U. S. owned companies in Venezuela, led to charges that the U. S. policy was one of support to dictatorships in Latin America.
II. RULE OF MARCOS PBIEZ JIMENEZ, 1948-1958
Perez Jimenez formed the Independent Electoral Front (FEI) and announced that elections would be held in 1951. When electoral returns began coming in and it was evident that the URD was winning, Perez Jimenez ordered a
Q Lieuwen, Venezuela, p. 82. 30. tight censorship of all election news and on 2 December 1951 proclaimed an
FEI victory. He then formed his own labor movement, the Independent Trade
Union Movement of Workers which later became the National Confederation of
Workers (CNT), and eventually declared all other labor organizations to be illegal.
Under Perez Jimenez prosperity came to Venezuela on the international ledger sheet, as increased foreign demands stimulated by the Korean War and the Suez Crisis led to doubled production of oil. The importance of petro leum to the Venezuelan labor movement and economy will be described more fully later in this chapter.
Perez Jimenez tried to wipe out the AD and drew upon a wide variety of support, including the Communists. The latter split into two groups — a
Trotskylte group headed by Rudolfo Quintero which worked with the govern ment , and another group headed by Eloy Torres which operated underground and worked against Perez Jimenez. Thus the stories of Communist leadership of the anti-Perez Jimenez forces were given credence. Perez Jimenez per mitted Quintero’s Trotskyite group to take over the labor movement and the teachers in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the Communists, operating clandestinely, penetrated underground organizations, and there is evidence that through
Trotskyite contacts they worked with the secret police to turn in AD and 11 other democratic leaders.
Perez Jimenez’ declaration that all labor organizations other than the
Ibid, p. 93-97.
Lectures, Labor in Latin America. 31.
CNT were illegal led to his fight with Jovito Villalba and the URD, and also with the Christian group COPEI, which had at first been tolerated.
Later COPEI and the URD as political parties suffered because their labor factions would not co-operate with the CNT. Persecution of COPEI and re sulting restrictions on political action by Catholic civic groups, in cluding labor, resulted in disaffection of the Church. By 1957 opposition X / 12 to Perez Jimenez was beginning to crystallize into organized action.
The Patriotic Junta, a clandestine group organized against Perez
Jimenez, ordered a general strike in Caracas on 21 January 1958. Two days later Perez Jimenez fled to the Dominican Republic and a provisional junta led by Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal came into power. Political and trade union leaders were freed and basic freedoms restored. The National Security
Police was eradicated and numerous exiles, including Betancourt, returned from abroad. Free presidential elections were announced for December 1958 and hopes ran high for a revitalized labor movement.
Ill. SINCE 1958 — ROMULO BETANCOURT AND THE AD
Labor accounted for over half of the two and one-half million votes cast in the December 1958 elections, and the majority of these votes went to the victorious AD party. The congressional seats won by the Communists were also largely accounted for by the labor vote. On 13 February 1959
Betancourt was inaugurated president, with a term to run until March 1964.
He formed a coalition government that included leaders of the URD and 13 COPEI but excluded the Communists.
Ibid.
Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 165-166. 32.
By 1960 the coalition had split wide open. First Domingo Alberto
Rangel, leader of left-wing AD elements, broke away and formed the Move ment of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) in April 1960. In November the URD, which in the 1958 elections had, with Communist support, polled nearly thirty-five per cent of the votes, broke away and formed a close alliance with the Communist Party (PCV) based on an anti-U.S., ultra-nationalist platform. This breakdown in the coalition led to the development of a powerful minority of Communists and far leftists on the one hand, and a strengthening of the majority elements consisting of the AD and the COPEI.
Thus COPEI, which in the 1958 election had polled about fifteen per cent of the votes cast, which in general represents the military, the Catholic population, and the business community, and which is strongly anti- -
Communist but also at times sharply critical of the U.S., has provided 14 the AD with the additional measure of strength it needs to remain in power.
Under Betancourt organized labor, one of his chief supporters, pros pered. Some 700 new unions were legalized, national federations were re established, and the CTV was revived. Government supported the labor federa tions in their bargaining with employers, and several new collective con tracts were promulgated, including one in the oil industry which granted
increased wages and fringe benefits to over 40,000 petroleum workers at an
annual cost estimated at $53 million to the petroleum companies and $47 15 million to the government.
At this point an outline of the organization of the CTV, and some of
14 Murphy, "New Communist Patterns in Latin America." Fortune. October 1963. 15 Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 106 33.
Its major affiliates, may be helpful In describing in subsequent chapters the work of international labor organizations within the different strata of the labor segment.
Local unions in Venezuela may belong to both State and Industrial
federations, just as local unions in the U. S. may affiliate with the
AFL/CÏO unions and with State affiliates of the AFL/CIO. By the middle of
1961 23 State federations, 12 industrial federations, about 600 urban unions
and 2100-2200 rural unions were functioning as affiliates of the CTV, which then claimed 1,352,000 members.
Affiliates of the CTV, whose president is Jose Gonzalez Navarro, in clude the following: The Federation of Petroleum Workers (FEDEPETROL) with
43 affiliated unions and 40,000 members ; the Federation of Rural Workers of Venezuela (FCV) with 1,250 unions and 750,000 members (as of 1961); the
Federation of Workers of Graphic Arts (FETIG), with ten unions and 5,895 members; the Federation of Communications Workers, with 15 unions and 9,000 members ; Federation of Port Workers, with eight unions and 10,000 members;
Federation of Construction Workers, with 33 unions and 125,000 members;
Federation of Sugar Cane Workers, with 23 unions and 44,000 members; Federa
tion of Food and Beverage Workers, with 12 unions and 8,000 members; the
Health Workers* Federation (formerly known as the Federation of Maiariology
Workers), with 32,000 members; and the Executive Committee of the Federation 17 of Transport Workers, with 37 unions and 100,000 members.
Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela. p. 20-21.
Ibid. 34.
The most important labor organization not affiliated with the CTV — other than the estimated 200,000 pro-Commiinists expelled in the purge of
1961, which will be discussed in a moment — is the Committee of Autonomous
Trade Unions (CODESA), a Christian democratic labor organization which was founded in July 1958 by young Catholic workers. Its effect on Venezuelan labor will be discussed in a later chapter. Other groups not affiliated with the CTV are the Mail Carriers Union, with about 200 members; the
Venezuelan Federation of Teachers, with some 26,679 members in 25 State and regional federations, which is affiliated with the Conference of American
Educators; the Union of Radio and TV Professional Workers, which reported a membership of 400 in 1955, the latest date for which figures are available, but which is believed to have Increased considerably in membership in recent years — this union is affiliated to the independent Inter-American Federa tion of Entertainment Workers; the Venezuelan Association of Journalists
(AVP) , with 1,000 claimed members, about half of whom are MIR and Communists, although anti-Communist elements appeared to be gaining some measure of strength during 1963; and the new union of small farmers recently formed by the peasant leader Ramon Quijada, a former AD leader of the FCV who lost control of the
FCV in 1962 to other AD leaders and broke away to form his own union. This new peasant union has been formed too recently to permit realistic evaluation.
Although estimated in 1963 as controlling between 150,000 to 300,000 small farmers, it now appears that most of the FCV remained loyal to the CTV and 18 to the AD and that Quijada has only a few thousand adherents.
18 Ibid; also. Lectures, Labor in Latin America ; and Interview with Andrew C. HcLellan on 10 December 1963. 35.
As in other countries of Latin America involvement in politics is also a prime characteristic of the Venezuelan labor movement. Although labor legislation prohibits political affiliations of trade unions, the five major political parties are represented in the trade union movement: The
AD, which is dominant both in the CTV and in most State and industrial federations; the COPEI, URD, MIR and PCV. Each party maintains its own labor bureau to interpret policy and co-ordinate activities of trade union leaders. Also, labor leaders are frequently political leaders in the
National Congress. Auguste Malave Villalbe, secretary-general of the CTV, 19 is, for example, a member of the Senate.
AD/COPEI Versus Communists in Labor.
One particular aspect of the Venezuelan labor movement, the develop ments of 1961, offers an interesting example of anti-Communist tactics and a lesson to other Latin American labor groups in the importance of unity among the democratic forces. These tactics will therefore be covered in some detail to emphasize the importance of unity, since subsequent chapters will point up the defects in labor, and the vulnerability to Communist take over of labor, when unity of democratic forces is lacking.
When Perez Jimenez was overthrown in 1958 the Communists were the predominant element in the labor movement as most AD leaders were either in jail or in exile. These AD leaders, many of whom were trained by ORIT during their exile days, returned to Venezuela as mature, well-read, realistic intellectuals well versed in trade union organization, Upon
19 Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela, p. 20 36. their return AD leaders had the problem of rebuilding the base so as to regain control of the labor movement. The 2100 peasant leagues organized in the 1940*s by AD, which later became known as the FCV, and which P^rez
Jimenez had never been able to penetrate, were taken over en toto by
Betancourt and became the base by which AD labor leaders later parlayed themselves into the dominant position in the labor movement. In the mean time AD, using a delaying tactic, agreed to unity with the Communists on 20 the basis of proportional representation in the labor movement.
At the third convention of the CTV in November 1959, leaders were chosen by Party caucus. AD received one-half of all officers of the executive committee and an absolute majority of the directing council — the two bodies that governed between congresses. The Communists received the second largest group of positions. The CTV was reorganized, with re gional or state federations created in each state of Venezuela and indus trial federations created in each major industrial area. The AD Labor
Bureau, which had existed since 1940, operating in exile as well as under ground , worked to restore AD influence throughout the labor movement. By
1959 AD had re-established its position as the principal force in state and industrial confederations. With the far left break away in 1960, AD lost its absolute majority on the directing council of the CTV and sought coalition with COPEI in order to stay in power. AD labor leaders who re- 21 mained loyal became increasingly important within the AD party.
Interview, Andrew C. McLellan; also, Lectures, Labor in Latin America.
21 Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela. p. 20; also, Lectures, Labor in Latin America. 37.
In November 1960 strikes by bank and telecommunications workers cul minated in a call by left-wing labor groups — without CTV endorsement —
for a general strike on 1 December 1960 to weaken the Betancourt adminis
tration. Rioting broke out in Caracas, and Betancourt suspended constitu
tional guarantees and called out the Army. Then the CTV, representing
eighty per cent of the labor unions and two-thirds of the nation's workers,
came out strongly in behalf of Betancourt and a serious labor crisis was
averted. At this point AD began the process of reconquering the entire 22 labor movement.
On 15 December 1960 AD called a meeting of the directing council and
the groundwork was laid for removing Communist-Castroite influence from
the CTV. In Caracas, out of eighty unions, the Communists and MIR con
trolled almost sixty per cent. In the rest of Venezuela, Communist, MIR
and URD allies controlled about fifty-five per cent of the locals although
little of the regional and national structure. The FCV remained intact
and needed no special attention; Quijada, then head of the FCV, was able
to maneuver freely within the AD party since he was not faced with the 23 fight against the Communist and MIR groups.
In 1961 AD offered the hand of brotherhood to MIR and the Communists.
AD then began auditing the books of all Communist-controlled unions, which
revealed evidence of misappropriation of union funds for Party — not
union — purposes. These scandals, revealed during the months of February,
oo Lectures, Labor in Latin America.
Ibid. 38.
March and April, served to discredit many individual Communist labor leaders
in the eyes of the membership, and AD found key Communist leaders guilty
of violating CTV discipline by taking unilateral anti-government actions without CTV approval. In addition, if a Communist-dominated union did not
follow the instructions of a federation under AD control, the union was
intervened and taken over by the federation leaders. Between February and
November 1961, 280 elections were held; the results left AD controlling
about sixty-five per cent of the labor movement; the Communists, about ten
per cent; URD about twelve per cent; COPEI about nine per cent; Independents
about two per cent; and the balance uncommitted. Castro influence in the
labor movement was therefore almost eliminated during 1961 through tactics 24 and organization.
In the Fourth Congress of CTV national and regional labor federation
leaders in Caracas December 8-11, 1961, the top PCV , MIR and extremist URD
officers were expelled from the CTV, and the labor movement lined up behind
the Betancourt administration. The URD, PCV and MIR considered this Congress 25 illegal and created a rival CTV which they claim represents about 200,000.
Twice the Venezuelan labor confederation has purged its membership of
Communists — first in 1947 and again in 1961. The tactics employed to
accomplish the more recent purge must in large measure be credited to the
training and assistance given to Venezuelan labor leaders in exile by
democratic labor organizations. However, even the tough realism of these
Ibid. 25 Ibid; also. Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela, p. 22, Footnote No. 12. 39. men could not have accomplished the purge if the Social Christian and the
AD groups had not worked in close unity. These tactics, and the principle of unity of democratic forces, is therefore worthy of study by any labor organization that seeks to oust the Communists from control of its leader ship.
IV. SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS
The rest of this chapter will be a discussion of socio-economic forces which have a direct bearing upon the labor movement and the productivity of the Venezuelan workers. In this connection, it will be necessary to digress briefly into a discussion of the petroleum industry, and its effect upon wages and costs of living in Venezuela. This one industry dominates the Venezuelan economy, providing nearly half the revenues which the government receives, yet employing only some 43,000 workers, or less than three per cent of the labor force. At the same time, high wages, a very high although stable price index, and high costs of extraction, as well as the Venezuelan taxes which are higher than in other oil-producing areas of the world, make Venezuela an expensive country in which to operate.
Thus Venezuela's dependence upon one industry could create several dangers to the Venezuelan economy and the Venezuelan labor movement.
First of all, prosperity in Venezuela is geared to the petroleum in dustry. During World War II, following the torpedoing by German submarines of seven oil tankers in February 1942, it became impossible to move Vene
zuela' s oil and production dropped by 25 per cent in 1942. Widespread unemployment resulted. On the other hand, the crises of the 1950's in the
Middle East caused Venezuelan oil development to reach a high point and
brought an economic boom to the country. 40.
Secondly, Venezuela's position as the world's largest exporter of oil is no longer unchallenged. The U. S., one of the chief customers of Vene zuelan oil, instituted mandatory controls on oil imports in March 1959.
These restrictions will probably be eased because of the high costs of oil development in the U. S., once the present excess capacity has been absorbed, but they do constitute a distinct threat to the Venezuelan petroleum industry,
Further, the Middle East, which has a higher per well production than Vene zuela and also lower wage levels and lower exploration costs, has been con sidered by the larger international oil companies to be the most profitable area of operation, barring political instability and particularly terrorism which has been evident since 1961. In addition, other areas which offer competition to Venezuela have been increasing their production. Soviet oil exports are expected to grow more rapidly than demand within the next few years, so that exports to Western Europe, a consumer of Venezuelan oil, may in the near future be competitively priced. French North Africa, Libya,
Canada — which is building a transcontinental pipeline that will increase its production — and Argentina, which has no# contracted for foreign oil companies to assist its national oil company in developing the country's resources, all combine to offer a challenge to Venezuela's ranking position 26 in the petroleum industry.
Thirdly, Venezuela's dependence upon petroleum must be considered in the light of other socio-economic forces affecting the labor population.
For a detailed analysis of the Venezuelan petroleum industry and its competitors, see: The Economic Development of Venezuela; also, Lieuwen, Venezuela; Lieuwen, Petroleum in Venezuela: A History; Rudolfo Luzardo, Venezuela; Business and Finances; and others. 41.
The basic wage today in the petroleum industry is about $6.00 per day plus
100 per cent in fringe benefits. Wages in other industries, with the ex ception of the iron mining industry, are much less. Yet because of the high wages which less than three per cent of the labor force receives — coupled with inequitable land distribution, which will be considered in a moment — the average annual real income level in Venezuela is about $600
U.S. per year. At the same time, almost half the population lives on sub- 27 marginal or subsistence levels.
Large landowners comprise about two per cent of the rural population, yet they own an estimated 75 per cent of the country's arable land. On
5 March 1960 the Betancourt government passed the Agrarian Reform Law and
created the National Agrarian Institute. Idle lands were taxed and large
landholders were forced to sell. An estimated 57,000 campesino families were subsequently resettled on productive farm land, with a target of re 28 settlement of some million people by 1966. Each family gets about 25 acres.
Since agriculture absorbs the energies of approximately thirty-five
per cent of the economically active population — although not the trade
union segment of the population, since the bulk of the agricultural labor
force is not organized — the campesino resettlement program represents an
effort to increase the number of small independent farmers and, hopefully, 29 also their income level and standard of living.
27 Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 112; The Economic Development of Venezuela. p. 112; Murphy, "New Communist Patterns in Latin America," Fortune. October 1963. 28 Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 159 29 Ibid, p. 121. 42.
The middle class makes up an estimated fifteen per cent of the economically active population. These are the bankers, lawyers, engineers, domestic in dustrialists, merchants and agricultural producers. Their business enter prises are also affected by the petroleum industry, since small business is subject to dependence on domestic sources of supply and domestic markets, which in turn are affected by the high costs of labor and raw materials and high local interest rates resulting from standards set in the petroleum 30 industry.
Finally, consideration should be given to the productivity of the Vene zuelan worker, which is estimated as considerably lower than that of workers in similar Jobs in the U.S. This productivity is dependent upon factors over which labor has little if any control, namely, quality of management, applied technology, and availability and effectiveness of educational facili- 31 ties, and of medical facilities and health standards.
Labor-management relations, which are better in Venezuela than in many countries of Latin America, possibly as a result of the 1936 strike which was discussed previously, are regulated by collective contracts and labor legislation. Labor law applies equally to foreigners and Venezuelans but not to members of the armed forces, public officials and public em ployees. Forced labor was prohibited in the first Labor Law which was passed in 1928, and which also provided a maximum working day of nine hours and sanctions for the violation of the law. Subsequent labor laws have pro-
30 Ibid, p. 166 ; also, Rousset, David, "Venezuela's Embattled Democracy," The New Leader. 11 November 1963. 31 The Economic Development of Venezuela, p. 203. 43. vldeâ for profit sharing and legal aid for laborers. Labour Courts of the first instance and labor appellatecourts have been in existence since
November 1937.
U. S. management of the large oil companies has generally been sympa- 32 thetic to the aims of Venezuelan labor, and has taken the lead in pro viding medical, educational, social and other services for employees and their dependents.
An example of co-operation between management and labor in Venezuela is the agreement reached in April 1958 between the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEDECAM) and the National Committee on Trade
Union Unity (C8UN) whereby bipartite committees were formed within each industry to discuss and find solutions to common problems. These committees represent an additional step — beyond collective bargaining — in the co operation of management and labor in the field of industrial relations.
One other example is worthy of mention. The Sugar Workers* Federation and the Sugar Growers* Association have co-operated in developing a housing program which is paid in part by union and in part by management. This
represents an experiment which is uni^que in Latin America.
The other factors which have been mentioned as affecting labor pro
ductivity, namely, quality and quantity of health and educational services, will now be discussed briefly.
Medical facilities are inadequate and are characterized by a shortage
of qualified technical personnel such as laboratory technicians, dieticians.
32 Standard Oil of New Jersey won friends and influence among Venezuelan workers by its refusal to endorse the policies of Marcos Perez Jimenez. 44, physiotherapists, sanitarians, doctors and nurses. In early 1959 there were only 2,158 nurses in Venezuela, and about one doctor for every 1,655 33 persons. In addition, sixty-five per cent of all doctors practiced in the four largest cities — Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia and Barquisimeto.
The Venezuelan Institute of Social Security (IVSS) maintains its own dis pensaries and hospitals, but covers a relatively small number of workers, 34 and these only in the metropolitan and industrial areas.
An increase in educational facilities and a concerted literacy drive by the Betancourt administration has been developing since 1958. In 1950 less than one out of every three children went to elementary school; in
1957, about two out of five; and today an estimated four out of every five goes to elementary school. Education is now compulsory for children from seven through fourteen years of age. In addition, a teacher training program and an evening adult education program have been initiated to eliminate adult illiteracy. By the end of 1960 some 200,000 adults had been certi- 35 fiedlas being able to read and write as a result of this program.
33 For comparative purposes, it is interesting to note that U.S. Public Health Department figures for 1963 indicate a U.S. national average of 1,101 persons per physician in private practice (not including doctors employed by government); and in the State of Mississippi, which has a predominantly rural population, about 1,715 persons per physician in private practice.
For additional information on medical facilities and social security practices, see The Economic Development of Venezuela. p. 383-388.
Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela, p. 5; The Economic Development of Venezuela. p. 348; Interview with Andrew C. McLellan; Lectures, Labor in Latin America. 45.
Progress has also been made in the field of industrial training. In
1956-1957 there were only five industrial schools in the country with a total enrollment of 3,270, of which 1,062 were adult evening students en rolled on a part-time basis; in addition, many of the 174 teachers were part-time. By 1959-1960 there were fourteen industrial schools with about
13,000 students enrolled. The Institute of Co-operative Education (INCE) has also been active in the field of industrial training; its activities 36 will be covered in the chapter on the ILO.
An emergency school construction program initiated by the Betancourt administration has more than doubled the number of elementary schools and tripled the number of high schools. An effort is also being made, through the teacher training programs mentioned above, to improve the quality of teaching, as many of the teachers themselves are not university or normal school graduates. By 1959-1960 there were some 2,000 students enrolled in 37 teachers* training courses in Caracas and Barquisimeto.
The basic problems facing the Betancourt administration, as described in the preceding pages, will now be discussed in the light of what has been accomplished since 1958 and its relation to the shift in U. S. policy since 1958 towards Latin America.
In 1958 Betancourt initiated the Program for Extraordinary Work (POE) to employ unskilled workers on emergency projects. On 21 April 1960 the
Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation was established to deter the granting of
The Economic Development of Venezuela. p. 335. 37 For additional information on educational standards and facilities in Venezuela see: The Economic Development of Venezuela. 46. new private concessions; this was also a political maneuver to satisfy, or
at least lessen, the demands by far-left elements for nationalization of the
large petroleum companies. Public credit facilities such as the Venezuelan
Development Corporation, the Agriculture and Livestock Bank, Industrial
Bank, Workers* Bank and four regional development banks have been started
to improve the income of the Venezuelan subsistence farmer and the low- 38 level industrial worker through subsidy and credit programs.
None of the above has developed to a high degree of operational effi
ciency, but there has been a marked improvement in the effectiveness of
these programs in the last twelve months. What is important, however, is
that basic reforms aimed at achieving social revolution peacefully, in a
country that until 1958 had had only three years of democratic government,
has at least been initiated and is underway. None of these achievements
has been easy or painless. On the contrary, these social reforms have
undermined the power and prestige and consequently alienated the political
support of the upper class and military elite strata of society. They have
also alienated the far left by being less revolutionary than many wanted
as well as by removing many of the grievances which gave popular support
to left-wing forces. This in turn can easily lead to the familiar alliance,
in Latin America, of the far left and far right in opposing social reform —
a situation which can itself result in Communist capture — by dint of
superior organization and dedication — of control of social revolution.
Numerous attempts have been made to overthrow the AD regime and to
38 Ibid, p. 56; also, Lieuwen, Venezuela. p. 123; and John M. Hightower, 'Venezuela Pushes Hard." Christian Science Monitor. 6 November 1963. 47. assassinate Betancourt. When he completed his first year in office in
January 1960, he made history as the first freely elected Venezuelan presi dent to do so. A more important "first" will have been accomplished if he can succeed iv- turning over the reins of government peacefully to his popularly elected successor in March 1964.
The reforms which Betancourt has introduced since 1958 are essentially the same reforms which he initiated and attempted, far less successfully, to carry out in 1945-1948, although his techniques varied and his objectives may have been more reasonable. In addition, his progress since 1958 coin cides with the shift in U. S. policy in 1958 towards a full-scale realiza tion of the inevitably strengthening social revolution in Latin America and the dangers inherent to U. S. security needs if this social revolution comes under Communist control.
When Vice-President Richard M. Nixon and his wife visited Caracas in
1958, the verbal and physical assaults to which they were subjected prompted an immediate reaction in U. S. government circles that these attacks were
Communist inspired. Not until later was it gradually realized that some thing far deeper was involved; that terrorist attacks, regardless of how directed or inspired, could not succeed without popular support. As a further step, it was realized that the spark needed to generate this popular support, at that particular time in Caracas, had been U. S. government sup port of a stagnant dictatorship which had existed for ten years — under a man who had been decorated and recently given refuge in the U. S.
The Nixon incident — if attacks on the person of a vice-president of
this country can be considered an "incident" — led to an awakening in many 48. quarters of the U. S. to the need to re-examine and redirect U. S. policies towards Latin America in line with the basic needs of the social revolution which was rapidly spreading through the hemisphere. This realization resulted in time in the formation of the Alliance for Progress program aimed at assisting Latin American governments and population segments, such as the labor force, with which we are concerned in this study, in achieving social revolution peaceably.
Betancourt's visit to the Ü. S. in 1963 as a guest of President Kennedy was in a sense a publicrecognition and avowal by the U. S. of the shift in
U. S. policies in favor of Latin American social revolutions and their peaceful implementation under multilateral guidance of the Alliance for
Progress.
Thus the policies of the Betancourt government, which are aimed at achieving peaceful socio-economic reforms, have been directly assisted since 1958 by the shift in U. S. policy towards Latin America. The earlier
AD regime from 1945 to 1948 was not supported or assisted by the U.S., and was resented in many sectors of the U.S. because of certain measures which were not in the best interests of the U.S. owned companies in Venezuela.
This, combined with the fact that the U.S. openly supported Perez Jimenez and his policy of economic and political stabilization, led to charges that
U.S. policy was one of support to dictatorships in Latin America. The re turn to power of Betancourt and the AD in 1958 coincided with the shift of
U.S. policy towards multilateral and bilateral implementation of socio economic reforms. U. S. efforts in this direction, in the labor field, will be covered in a later chapter. First, however, it will be necessary to trace 49. the work of the other International forces on Venezuelan labor, in order to analyze the overall change and scope which has taken place as a result of closer involvement of U. S. labor groups since 1958 and their inter relationships with other International forces. Venezuelan relations in the labor field with the International Labor Organization (ILO) will therefore be covered in the next chapter. CHAPTER IV
THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION
This chapter concerns the relations of the Venezuelan government and labor movement to the tripartite International Labor Organization
(ILO) and will attempt to analyze the ILO's degree of influence upon Vene zuelan labor methods, procedures and structures.
The ILO charter, which became Chapter XIII of the Versailles Peace
Treaty on 11 April 1910 and which was later incorporated similarly into the United Nations Charter, grants the ILO power to pass conventions on social matters affecting the working and living standards of the labor populations of the world. These conventions do not have the force of law unless and until they are individually ratified by the appropriate legislative bodies of countries signatory to the Charter. ILO also acts as a "sounding board" or representative forum for world labor opinion and discussion, and provides a means of pooling technical assistance and guidance when so requested by nations signatory to the Charter. Various conferences of American states which are members of the ILO have been held in Latin America, attended by delegates of the ICFTU and ORIT as well as the WFTU and CTAL. Resolutions adopted at these conferences have included the desirability of establishing close working relationships between the
ILO and the OAS, and an endorsement of the need for agrarian reform in
Latin America. ILO has also since 1945 maintained international industrial committees consisting of representatives of governments, employers and workers from countries in which the industries concerned are active. The work of one of these committees in Venezuela — the Petroleum Commission — 51. 1 will be discussed la a moment.
Venezuela was one of the original members of the ILO, and has been
a member continuously with the exception of a brief period from 1955 to
1958, even after withdrawing in July 1938 from the League of Nations. She
has ratified 18 of the 114 conventions and revisions prepared by IIO, among
them the conventions concerning marking of weight on heavy packages trans
ported by vessels, conventions concerning employment of women during night, 2 and the convention concerning night employment of young persons in industry.
She has not (as of 1964) ratified Convention Number 87 on Freedom of Associa
tion and Protection of the Right to Organize, nor Convention Number 98 on
the Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively,
ILO*s influence and activities in Venezuela can best be discussed in
two separate phases: That which concerns the period 1948 to 1958, when
Perez Jimenez was in power; and that which concerns the efforts of the
ILO since 1958 in Venezuela. The former period concerns the Petroleum
Commission which was mentioned a moment before.
I LG played a leading role in focusing world censure and pressure of
labor groups against the repression by Perez Jimenez of free labor, his
Fourth Conference of American States Members of the ILO. Montevideo. April - May 1949. Record of Proceedings. Geneva, 1951, p. 271; also, "The Industrial Committees of the ILO." Reprinted by the International Labor Organization from the International Labour Review. Vol. LII , Nos. 2-3, August-September 1945, p. 1; also, Schevenels, Walter, Forty-Five Years. International Federation of Trade Unions, 1901-1945, Brussels, p. 95-98. 2 These three conventions had been ratified by 1936 , according to a report by the Venezuelan government delegate, Diaz Paul, at the 1936 Con ference in Santiago of American states members of the ILO. 52. dissolution of labor federations and unions, and the imprisonment and banishment of Venezuelan labor leaders. This was spotlighted in 1949 when
Leon Jouhaux, in addressing the administrative council of the ILO at
Geneva, described the government repression of labor in Venezuela. As a result, representatives of the ILO were sent to conduct a field investiga tion. The investigating mission, which was headed by Jef Rens, included
Albert Guigui, Ignace Bessling, Manuel Araoz and Carlos d'Ugard. It re mained in Venezuela from July 1949 until September 1949, meeting with Ruben
Corredor, the Venezuelan Minister of Labor at the time; P^rez Machado, the
ILO correspondent for Venezuela; Pedro José Rojas Contreras of the govern ment union CNT; Victor Laviosa; Julio Torres Vivas; and Boris Bunimov, and 3 other officials and government representatives.
The Rens Report confirmed Jouhaux*s accusations and issued a state ment which was totally opposed to the Perez Jiménez regime. At the same time, or shortly thereafter, the ILO appointed a Dr. Montoya, a repre sentative of Perez Jiménez* CNT, to the ILO Governing Body. This apparent contradiction of ILO position, occasioned by the duality of the IIO*s re lationship with both governments and industrialized sectors, brought sharp criticism from £. Mujal of the Cuban Confederation of Workers and 4 from Francisco Aguirre.
Another sharp controversy developed in April 1952 over the ILO*s decision to hold its Petroleum Industrial Committee meeting in Caracas.
^ "Venezuela Under the Junta Militar." Free Labour World. No, 20, February 1952, p. 14. 4 Report on the Second World Congress Held at Milan. Italy 4-12 July 1951. Published by the ICFTU, Brussels, 1951, p. 243; also. Report of the Third World Congress Held at Stockholm. 4-11 July 1953. Published by the ICFTU, Brussels, 1953, p. 257. 53,
The selection of Caracas as a site for the meeting, in the light of Rens' report on the anti-democratic and anti-trade union policies of the Perez
Jimenez regime, brought to ILO a stream of protests from the ICFTU, Luis
Alberto Monge on behalf of GRIT, Alfonso Sanchez Madariaga, Venezuelan working member of the Council of Administration of ILO in Mexico (where
Sanchez had taken exile), Jose^ R. Alendue and Bonifacio Ariste of the
Cuban National Federation of Petroleum Workers, and Loyd Haskins on behalf of the International Federation of Petroleum Workers (IFPW). Later CISC
also lodged a complaint. Petroleum workers' unions in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. refused to participate in the meeting, at which point Pedro Jose^
Rojas Contreras, leader of the Venezuelan government dominated CNT, him
self protested to J. H. Oldenbroek, General Secretary of the ICFTU.
Oldenbroek replied that the decision to refuse to attend the Caracas 5 meeting was done to defend the interests of the Venezuelan workers.
A somewhat different tack was taken by K. P. Tripathi of the Indian
National Trade Union Confederation, who expressed the viewpoint that the
ILO's selection of Caracas as a meeting site would focus attention upon
the labor problems in Venezuela and would therefore be of more value than
any resolutions which ILO might pass.
In any event, the meeting did take place. Adriaan Vermeulen, attending
as a representative of the ILO Governing Body and not in his capacity as
secretary of the Netherlands Trade Union Federation, issued a speech which was sharply critical of Venezuelan trade union restrictions. This led to
^ Report of the Fourth World Congress Held at Vienna 20-28 May 1955. Published by the ICFTU, Brussels, 1955, p. 222; see also, "The Free Trade Union Movement and the Caracas Petroleum Meeting." Free Labour World. No. 59, May 1955; and "The Petroleum Conference at Caracas." Free Labour World. No. 60. June 1955. 54.
Perez Jimenez* issuance of an expulsion order against Vermeulen. The ex pulsion order was immediately protested, and when Perez Jimenez refused to rescind the order Dutch newspapers attacked the totalitarian system in 6 Venezuela. The meeting was adjourned ahead of schedule.
Protests against the meeting continued. In 1955 Venezuelan exiles, X Including Auguste Halave Villalba, Manuel Penalver, Angel F. Bravo, Vicente
Gamboa Marcano, Carlos Galue and Francisco Olivo, used ORIT as a forum to protest against the 1952 meeting.
As a result of the above controversy and publicity, Venezuela, which had already been suppressing ILO literature ever since the Rens* Report,
in May 1955 withdrew from the ILO.
Since the establishment in 1958 of democratic government in Venezuela,
ILO efforts have taken a different direction, namely that of providing direct technical assistance to such programs as the Employment Service, the Social Security, and the Institute of Co-operative Education (INCE),
at the request of the Venezuelan government.
INCE, which was established in 1959 to provide apprenticeship and
inplant training, operates under the Ministry of Education and is adminis
tered by the Ministries of Education, Labor and Development, by repre
sentatives of employers* and workers* organizations, and by the National
Federation of Teachers. It is financed by taxes imposed on employers and
employees and by subsidies or grants from the government. Nine ILO experts were scheduled to work with the INCE during 1961-1962, to assist in the
® See, Vermeulen, A., Speech at the Petroleum Conference. Free Labour World. No. 61, July 1955. 55. overall programs which include classes for personnel supervisors, plant foremen and industrial relations personnel, and other types of worker 7 education.
The Employment Service, which also operates under the Ministry of
Labor, has also received assistance of a technical nature from ILO in the collection and use of labor statistics, in labor inspection, industrial training, safety and hygiene. This assistance was extended to a survey of areas where unemployment was high to determine levels of work experience and labor skills and to encourage the unskilled unemployed to enroll at 8 INCE vocational and industrial training centers.
In addition, ILO has rendered assistance to the Venezuelan government in the field of social security. Although present coverage, as discussed earlier in connection with medical and health aspects of Venezuelan labor, is limited, the Betancourt administration has expressed its intention to provide cradle to grave coverage for everyone, and has discussed how to
achieve this extensive coverage with ILO experts on social security. It is expected that the revised social security legislation which has been under discussion, but which was not presented to Congress because of the elections of December 1963, will be held in abeyance until after the new president has taken office and the political situation has given an indication of settling 9 down following the transition involved in the change of presidents.
7 Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela. p. 5 , 6 and 17.
® Ibid, p. 17 and 35. g U.S. Department of State Airgram A-215 dated October 1, 1963 from American Embassy, Caracas, Subject : "Progress on Certain Recommendations of Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labor.," p. 2. 56.
Finally, in analyzing the influence of ILO on Venezuelan labor, two generalizations emerge: Whereas during the period 1948-1958 the ILO's influence was that of a forum for world labor censure, ILO literature was suppressed in Venezuela and Venezuela withdrew from the ILO; on the other hand, since 1958, with a pro-labor government in power, ILO has been able to provide, when requested by that government, technical expertise and advisory services. Thus ILO's duality as the representative of world labor opinion as defined by industrial cross-sections, and ILO's function within the framework of world government as spelled out by the United Nations
Charter as a spokesman for world labor with national governments, is on the one hand inhibitory when ILO is dealing with anti-labor governments, and on the other hand positive when dealing with pro-labor governments that request the type of assistance which ILO is able to provide. ILO's influence and work in Venezuela must therefore be judged on the basis of how it offers the assistance requested; in appraising the work accomplished within the departments of the Labor Ministry that have received this assis tance, it should be recognized that an important step has been accomplished in getting the programs underway. The development of these programs in which ILO is assisting will have to be judged at a later date when a more definite evaluation can possibly be made in the light of actual achievements. CHAPTER V
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
This chapter will attempt to analyze the relations between Venezuela and
international Communist labor organizations, and to evaluate the strength and
influence of Communism in Venezuela in the light of present-day events. In this connection, it will be necessary first to consider Communist strategy 6n
a regional scale as related to Latin American labor; and secondly on a national
scale as the tactics of this strategy have developed and changed in Venezuela.
These considerations will then be placed in context in relation to the Sino-
Soviet split and its possible Implications on U.S. foreign policy towards
Latin America.
Using the first consideration as a starting point, two divergencies in
Communist strategy appear — the one endorsed by Khrushchev, the other by
Fidel Castro. Soviet strateg;y in Latin America will be discussed first.
The major elements of Soviet strategy with reference to labor in Latin
America are: Infiltration and control of individual trade unions and
national labor confederations; causing a division among democratic labor groups at all levels, local, national and international; and establishment
of a neutralist Revolutionary Latin American Confederation of Labor to which
Latin American unions, maneuvered into separating themselves from democratic
confederations, would come to lean upon for support.
Unfortunately the available published information on the particulars of
the tactics by which this strategy is carried out is very meager. It is known,
however, that some 17 full time Communist organizers are working in Costa Rica,
some 200 in Brazil, about 150 in Chile and about 80 in Peru. In the propaganda
field, about two 100,000 copy editions of the monthly World Trade Union Move
ment . which is published in Mexico by the WFTU and the CTAL for Mexico and 58.
Central America alone, and additional fortnightly bulletins and magazines are distributed to Communists for distribution among labor unions in Latin
America. Granted the paucity of this information, it, nevertheless, gives 1 us some limited notion of the magnitude of Communist activity.
These tactics have not been successful for two reasons, one the Increased
impetus given to democratic labor groups by democratic international labor groups, which will be considered more fully in subsequent chapters ; the other, because of dissension which has developed within the Communist camp between
Vicente Lombardo Toledano, head of the CTAL, and Lazare Pena of the Cuban and hence now Castro-dominated labor confederation. Thus the current situation
in the Communist camp is confused and difficult to analyze or evaluate. As
has been pointed out in an earlier chapter, the CTAL is now a weak and dis
credited organization which the Communists at times seem to want to replace,
and at other times to wish to retain. These factors, when viewed against
the present power clash within the CTAL between the aging Lombardo Toledano,
who could be expected, by virtue of age and previous attitudes, to support
Soviet ideologies and policies; and the younger, pro-Castro Lazaro Pena, take
on added significance when considered in the light of Castro tactics.
In any attempt to delineate Castro strategy in Latin America, a thorough
analysis would probably include close perusal of La Guerra de Guerrillas,
written by the Argentine Ernesto "Che" Guevara whom many ant 1 -Communist Cubans
maintain is an agent of international Communism who worked himself into the
Castro leadership in order to bring Cuba under Soviet domination. The writer
^ Alfonso Sanchez Madariaga, ORIT General Secretary, "Communist Drive Against Latin American Labor Unions." Free Labour World. No. 132, June 1961, p. 253. 59. has not made a perusal of La Guerra de Guerrillas and is neither equipped nor qualified to probe the gradations and variations of Communist ideologies.
However, another writer who has made this perusal has drawn the conclusion that there Is no trace of Soviet phraseology in Guevara's writing, but evidence of both Trotskyite and Maoist influence. He also points out that
Guevara's flat denial of the leading role of the proletariat in revolution is directly contrary to Soviet doctrine and exceeds even Mao's concepts of 2 revolution, which are based on rural or peasant strength.
This analysis, if correct, would indicate that Castro's tactics do not involve organized labor as an initial base of support for Communist take-over.
Further, if considered in the light of Castro tactics in Venezuela, which was
Castro's first target, it would appear that terrorism and hit-and-run attacks by small highly disciplined groups are the Castro tactics for take-over, to be followed by domination of base support groups such as labor once the take over is accomplished.
If this is the case, Castro has suffered severe frustrations in Venezuela, which was to be his starting point for a conquest of Latin America. We have already discussed the tactics which Betancourt and the AD employed in 1961 in purging the CTV of Communists, and the formation of a second. Communist-oriented labor federation estimated to number about 200,000 by MIR and Communist labor elements expelled from the CTV. Venezuelan labor has remained fiinmly behind
Betancourt with the exception of this group of about 200,000. In addition,
Betancourt's policies of agrarian reform and credit and other public assistance
2 Ernst Halperln, "Castroism — Challenge to the Latin American Communists." Problems of Communism. September-October 1963. Footnote No. 5 in this article. 60.
In the rural areas has prevented the small pro-Communist guerrilla bands in the countryside from gaining support among the peasants. This too must be a frustration to the bearded Cuban, as Guevara's treatise on guerrilla warfare apparently considered peasant support an indispensable condition for success.
In other words, it would seem that Castro tactics in Venezuela today are concerned with terrorism and sabotage as carried out by some 400 Cuban- trained experts In sabotage, subversion and propaganda — the top leaders of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) which is headed by Gustavo
Machado, whom we have mentioned earlier. In addition, the Castroites apparently at some point in 1962 gained control of the small Communist Party 3 of Venezuela, which Is estimated at 40,000.
Castro undoubtedly will not relinquish his efforts to seize control of
Venezuela, despite his most recent set-backs in failing to terrorize Vene zuelans not to vote in the December 1963 elections, and in the discovery of an arms cache which bore Cuban markings and which has given Betancourt the proof he needed to present to the OAS for multilateral action against Cuban aggression. On the contrary, one of Castro's lieutenants has said that when 4 Cuba gets the steel and oil of Venezuela she will set Latin America afire.
From the above, two interesting possibilities emerge: First, the possi bility that Castro is generating a third position in Communist ideology, more radical than the Soviet philosophy of first organizing the workers politically so as to build up base support for take-over, and perhaps also stronger than
3 John U. Hightower, AP Staff Correspondent, "Venezuela: No. One Terrorist Target." Christian Science Monitor. 19 October 1963. 4 Charles J. V. Murphy, "New Communist Patterns in Latin America," Fortune, Magazine. October 1963. 61. the Mao and Guevara concept of peasant support as an essential Ingredient to revolutionary success. If Venezuela can be considered as a case in point, it would appear that entirely different tactics are advocated by Castro, al though the end result of domination of base support would be the same. Such a position would be expected to follow the Communist Chinese rather than the
Russian line in the Sino-Soviet dispute.
Secondly, Betancourt's approach to the OAS for immediate and decisive action against Cuban aggression in Venezuela can be considered as a consolida tion in the development of the OAS as an instrument of bringing multilateral pressure to bear against the imposition of foreign aggression and foreign ideologies Into the Western Hemisphere. The form which this multilateral pressure takes, should it involve economic or other sanctions against Cuba as Betancourt has requested, will be of extreme Interest to U.S. policies in
Latin America; it can also be of considerable importance in relation to the
Sino-Soviet split, should Castro's ideology and tactics, as suggested in view of his activities in Venezuela, be indeed more in tune with the Chinese than the Soviet concept. Such a development could conceivably be of significance in building the present tenuous off-and-on thawing of Soviet-U,S, relations into something approaching a closer rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia.
Again, Venezuela offers an interesting case study in point.
Thus, the influence of international Communist organizations on Venezuelan labor, with the exception of the approximately 200,000-member labor confedera tion formed by the Communists purged from the CTV in 1961, appears to be negligible. The apparent split within the Communist labor ranks in Latin
America seems to be developing in Venezuela into an entirely different tactic 62. as exemplified by the terrorist taotics of the pro-Castro FALN. The bulk of organized labor in Venezuela has remained firmly behind Betancourt; in addi tion, Betancourt's policies of agrarian reform have cost Castro the support of the peasantry, and have caused the FALN to fail in its efforts to intimidate the Venezuelan people by terroristic methods. Venezuela's programs of socio economic reforms therefore illustrate the comparative effectiveness of multi lateralism as expressed in U.S. policies towards Latin America in neutralizing
Communist ideologies in the Western Hemisphere. In this connection, Venezuela's relations with the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS will be discussed in the following chapter. CHAPTER VI
INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
We have discussed in previous chapters the frustrations which inter national Communism has suffered in Venezuela in its failure to capture control of the organized labor movement under the Betancourt regime. We have also discussed briefly the work of the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS in Latin America as individual
aggregations. This chapter will outline the influence and achievements of
these organizations in Venezuela, first under the anti-labor government of
Marcos Pe^rez Jimenez, and then under the pro-labor present government.
During the brief period from 1945 to 1949 when the IFTU organizations
(with the one exception of the AFL) joined the WFTU, the ITS took a strong
stand against subordinating their autonomy to the new trade departments which
the WFTU wished to establish. Many of the ITS had been successfully func
tioning since the early 1890’s and were accustomed to relative freedom of
action under the IFTU framework. Their insistence upon autonomy was one of
the principal reasons for the split from the WFTU of the democratic trade
unions. In January 1949 the British Trades Union Congress (TUC), American
CIO and Dutch Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) withdrew from the WFTU. Others 1 followed suit, and the WFTU became as a result a purely Communist organization.
When the democratic trade union federations regrouped in December 1949
into the ICFTU, a resolution was immediately adopted authorizing the new
Executive Board of the ICFTU to consult with the ITS to ensure close co-operation
and reciprocal representation. A joint ICFTU/ITS Steering Committee was set up
to correlate the regional programs of the ITS and the ICFTU with a view towards
Editorial. Inter-American Labor Bulletin. Issued Monthly by ORIT, Pub lished by the AFL/CIO, Washington, B.C. No. 9, September 1963; Omar Becu, "Relations Between ICFTU and the International Trade Secretariats.” Free Labour World. Vol. 1, No. 2, August 1950, p. 2. 64. more efficient financing of regional trade union activities through the 2 International Solidarity Fund Committee of the ICFTU.
Bulk of the financial assistance by the ICFTU to regional organizations, as has been pointed out previously, has gone to Asia and Africa, with Latin
American affiliates receiving a much smaller amount. Since 1961 there have been no unilateral ICFTU programs in Latin America, and all aid is now channelled through ORIT and the ITS. Similarly, affiliation fees to the
ICFTU from Latin America have been extremely small, although additional con tributions were made by the ITS to the ICFTU regional subsidies and education fund, which was set up by the ITS General Conference in Vienna in May 1955.
However, these were discontinued when the International Solidarity Fund of the
ICFTU began to grant financial assistance to the ITS for their regional work.
During the tenure of Perez Jimenez ICFTU/ORIT/ITS relations with Vene zuelan labor were characterized by criticisms and protests of the government's anti-labor activities, on the one hand, and secondly, by active assistance to 3 and support of the CTV in exile and the exiled Venezuelan labor leaders.
The first criticism was made at the second World Congress of the ICFTU in Milan in 1951, where there was considerable discussion of the situation in Venezuela. Delegates protested the dissolution of 46 unions in the petro leum industry by decree in 1949, and the imprisonment without trial of such
Venezuelan labor leaders as Pedro B. Perez Salinas, president of the CTV;
Luis Tovar, president of the Venezuelan Federation of the Trade Unions of
2 Omar Becu, "Relations Between ICFTU and the International Trade Secre tariats." Free Labour World. Vol. 1, No. 2, August 1950. p. 2. 3 The CTV in exile was represented at the founding congress of the ICFTU in December 1949 and remained affiliated as an exile organization until the overthrow of Perez Jimenez in 1958. 65.
Workers In the Petroleum Industry; Jose Gonzalez Navarro, president of the
Workers* Federation of the Federal District of Miranda; Manuel Penalver;
Leonidas Mbnasterio; and others. Accordingly a resolution was adopted at this
Congress to: (1) Raise the question of the Venezuelan trade union movement at the September session of UNEOOSOC; (2) Demand application of the International
Convention passed at the 1948 San Francisco Conference , of which Venezuela was a signatory; (3) Demand the release of the trade union leaders and return of exiles; (4) Demand that all goods and property confiscated by the military dictatorship be restored to the trade union organizations; and (5) Send a telegram to the Military Junta in Venezuela bringing to their notice the 4 above points of the resolution.
Another criticism was made in April 1952 by J. H. Oldenbroek, General
Secretary of the ICFTU, who sent a formal written protest to David A. Morse, director general of the IIX), deploring the confiscation of trade union property by the Venezuelan government, the maltreatment and torture of arrested trade unionists, the banishment of labor leaders and the dissolution of trade unions.
During and after the petroleum commission meeting in Venezuela, which has been discussed in an earlier chapter, Oldenbroek appealed to all ICFTU af filiates in North America, Latin America and Europe to protest to the Venezue- 5 Ian ambassadors in their respective countries.
The ICFTU and ORIT both voiced strong protests against the choice of
Caracas as a meeting place for the UNESCO Conference on Cultural Assimilation
^ Report on the Second World Congress Held at Milan. Italy 4-12 July 1951. Publication of the ICFTU. Brussels, 1951. p.403-404.
® "Ven"Venezuelan and Argentine Violations." Free Labour World. No. 22, April 1952, p.17. 66. of Immigrants and for the Tenth Inter-American Conference in March 1954.
Costa Rica refused to attend the latter conference on the grounds that a
"government which flagrantly violates all the principles of the Bogota^Charter 6 could not be a worthy host to the democratic governments of America."
In April 1955 at the third congress of ORIT in San Joaé, Costa Rica,
ORIT delegates attacked the Simpson Bill which was then before the U.S.
Congress for its restrictions on importations of some Latin American products,
particularly lead and zinc from Peru and Mexico. A pointed exception was made to restrictions in the Bill on the importation of petroleum residues
from Venezuela, on the grounds that such importations seriously harmed the
level of employment of U.S. coal miners affiliated with ORIT, and that further more ORIT did not wish to take any action to help the dictatorial regime in 7 Venezuela.
Other complaints were lodged with ILO and UNECOSOC against the Venezuelan
government when Venezuela withdrew from the ILO. These complaints were with- 8 drawn after the revolution in January 1958.
On the positive side, both ORIT and the ITS worked closely with Venezuelan
labor exiles during the years 1948 to 1958 when Pe^rez Jimenez was in power.
This assistance was invaluable in 1958 when labor leaders returned to Venezuela
to rebuild the CTV as a democratic organization.
Many of the top Venezuelan labor leaders were active in ORIT during their
exile period. Maiave Villalba was ORIT representative in Central America and
® Secretary-General*s Report. Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers of the ICFTU. Third Continental Congress. San Jose. Costa Rica. April 13-17. 1955. Publication of ORIT. p. 18.
Ibid, p. 12.
® ICFTU Report of the Third World Congress Held at Stockholm. 4-11 July 1953. Brussels, 1953, p. 75. 67.
Argentina; Jose Bravo worked on economic statistics in Mexico with ORIT;
Jose Vargas was on the ORIT payroll; Manuel Penalver, Rendez Fuexunayor and many others were active in ORIT; and Perez Salinas was Acting Director of
Education of ORIT and Inter-American Representative of the International
Federation of Food, Drink and Tobacco Workers (lUF) operating out of Mexico
City. The Cuban CTC also helped the exiles with financial and other assis
tance. As a result, when Pe^rez Jimenez was overthrown in 1958 these exiles
returned to Venezuela well trained in organization, contract negotiations,
strike strategy, labor leadership and lecturing. The fact that Venezuela
today has perhaps the most sophisticated trade union movement in Latin
America is largely due to the assistance given by the ORIT and the ITS to 9 the Venezuelan exiles.
In February 1958, shortly after the fall of Perez Jimé^nez, an ICFTU/
ORIT mission visited Venezuela to assess the needs of the labor movement
there and to report on the initial progress being done to rebuild the CTV.
Jim Bury, then assistant secretary of ORIT, and Herman Patteet, ICFTU Geneva
Representative, were in Caracas in February 1958; in April Andrew C. McLellan
and other ITS representatives arrived, also Serafino Romualdi, then assistant
secretary of ORIT, and his associate, David Sternbach. Their report, which
indicated unemployment to be a major problem, especially among the construction
workers, resulted in a contribution of $35,000 from the ICFTU to help the 10 democratic labor movement get started again in Venezuela.
Jim Bury, "ORIT: What it is and What it Does." Free Labour World. No. 102, December 1958, p. 15; Lectures, Labor in Latin America; Interview with Andrew C. McLellan 10 December 1963.
Interview with Andrew C. McLellan, 10 December 1963; also, ICFTU Report on the Sixth World Congress. 3-11 December 1959. Brussels, 1959, p. 58. 68.
Since 1958 the CTV and its leaders have worked closely with ORIT and the
ITS and have attended laost of the international meetings of these labor organizations in the Western Hemisphere, although the CTV did not affiliate to the ICFTU until after the purge of Communist unions which was described in an earlier chapter. At the first national congress of the CTV in November
1959, the CTV voted not to affiliate with ORIT at this time but its federa tions were given liberty to seek affiliation with the appropriate ITS, and this was encouraged by the AFL/CIO. Venezuelan labor leaders such as Augusto
Halave Villalba, Jose A. Vargas, Andres Hernandez Vazquez and Humberto Her nandez attended the fifth Congress of ORIT which was held in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil in August 1961 as observers.^^
Finally, in December 1961 at its second congress the CTV voted to seek affiliation to the ICFTU and the CISC, to promote unity and co-operation between ORIT and the CLASC, but not to affiliate at that time with any re gional trade union organization. On 12 July 1962 the CTV was accepted into affiliation at the ICFTU*s executive board's thirty-second meeting in Berlin.
Halave attended the ORIT meeting in January 1963 in Panama and was expected 12 to attend the executive committee meeting scheduled for January 1964.
Both ORIT and the ITS have taken an active role in the field of labor education, and Venezuelan labor leaders, already well trained from their exile days, have participated in almost all of the educational seminars, fre quently as instructors. Venezuelan labor exiles attended the Monterrey
^ Report on the Fifth Continental Congress of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT). Rio de Janeiro. Brazil. 20-25 August 1961. ORIT Department of Organization and Publications, Mexico City, October 1961, p. 24. 12 ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports. Seventh World Congress, Berlin, 5-13 July 1962, p. 89. 69.
seminar conducted by ORIT from 6 September to 2 October 1954, and have also
participated in the Inter-American Institute of Advanced Trade Union Studies which was inaugurated by ORIT in April 1962 in Cuernavaca in co-operation
with the ICFTU to give two to three month courses for some twenty trade unionists at a times. Classes are conducted in labor legislation, collective
bargaining, economics, oratory, Spanish composition, labor union accounting,
and labor publications. Emphasis is upon training teachers for workers*
education courses, so that these selected labor leaders can return to their
countries to organize trade union educational programs and to conduct research
in line with specific needs. Also helpful in the field of labor education
has been the Inter-American trade union correspondence school, which was
founded by ORIT but which has since been taken over by the ITS. Some four to
five thousand Latin Americans, many of them Venezuelans, are estimated to have
been graduated from this correspondence school. In addition, extensive use is
made of modern audio-visual methods available from the International Labour
Film Institute (ILFI) , a film library for international exchange of labor films,
and of magazines, periodicals and radio bulletins put out by the ORIT publica
tions department. In Venezuela several radio stations devote from fifteen to
thirty minutes weekly to transmission of news provided by the ORIT publications
department.13
I. WORK OF THE ITS IN VENEZUELA
Although some conflicts were evident in the beginning between ORIT and the
ITS, these organizations are now co-operating much more closely. The ITS had
Ibid, p. 197; also. Report on the Fifth Continental Congress of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT). Rio de Janeiro. Brazil. 20-25 August 1961. p. 60; also. Interview with Andrew C, McLellan, 10 December 1963. 70. a long history of tradition which the ORIT did not have, and overlapping jurisdiction at times led to dissension. With the withdrawal of the ICFTU from direct unilateral participation In Latin American labor matters, the
ORIT and ITS have sponsored Joint seminars and programs and have begun to work closely together. In addition, many of the ITS have sponsored educa tional programs geared to the needs and problems of the individual industrial federations. Host of the ITS that operate in Latin America now have programs
in Venezuela, and many of them claim Venezuelan affiliates. The ITS may,
and frequently do, request co-operation from their American affiliates, which
are also affiliates of the AFL/CIO, on such technical matters as strike
strategy, organization techniques, collective bargaining, etc. Also, ITS representatives in the Washington, D.C. area may be called in by the AFL/CIO
for briefings whenever a U.S. labor attache returns from Latin America. Thus
the AFL/CIO also participates actively in the Latin American labor movement,
although it has no direct unilateral relations with Latin America but operates only through its affiliates and their respective ITS. 14
International Federation of Petroleum Workers.
The IFPW, which was founded in April 1954 with headquarters at Denver,
Colorado and with an office in Bogot/, Colombia under Michael Pena, has had
the Venezuelan federation of petroleum workers, FEDEPETROL, with an estimated
40,000 members, as an affiliate since June 1961. FEDEPETROL has been extremely
active in the IFPW, particularly in the educational field, and now maintains
its own seminar program as a result of initial assistance from the IFPW. Loyd
A. Haskins, secretary-general of the IFPW, has made extensive tours throughout
Interview with Andrew C. HcLellan, 10 December 1963. 71.
Latin America, including Venezuela, to survey the needs of affiliated and prospective unions and to assist them in starting new programs. In addition,
IFPW publications — Petrogram. Petro and Union Builder — are distributed in 15 Venezuela.
International Metalworkers Federation.
The IMF, which was founded in 1904 in Stuttgart, Germany and which in cludes both iron and steel workers, has been working to establish a national affiliate in Venezuela. It publishes a monthly bulletin. Metal. in Spanish which is distributed in Venezuela. Venezuelan unionists participated in the IMF conference in 1962 at Piapa, Colombia, and again in February 1963 at Santos, Brazil, where classes were conducted in wage problems, regional 16 publications, economic developments and education techniques.
Because steelworkers in Venezuela are organized into local unions structured geographically rather than functionally, there is no national federation of metal workers in Venezuela. However, the steelworkers* union at the government-owned steel plant at Guayanas is an affiliate of the IMF and also of the United Steelworkers of America, which rendered assistance to the union in its negotiations with the Koppers Company, a U. S. firm hired by the Venezuelan government to manage the plant at Guayanas. This
ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports, p. 266; also, Forrest, Alan, "Venezuela*s Democratic Revolution." Free Labour World. No. 149, November 1962. 16 ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports, p. 264; Forrest, "Venezuela's Democratic Revolution." Free Labour World. November 1962; also. Interview with Meyer Bernstein, International Affairs Director, and Dean Clowes, International Affairs Representative, United Steelworkers of America, on 13 December 1963. 72.
steel union has about 3,000 members. As of September 1963 the Guayanas
plant had a production of 600,000 metric tons with immediate plans for the 17 production of 750,000 metric tons.
The United Steelworkers of America has been active in Venezuela since
1959, when Meyer Bernstein, now International Affairs Director of the
United Steelworkers, went to Venezuela to establish contact with the miners.
At that time Venezuelan miners had established incomes higher than those of
the miners in the U.S., as they were paid for seven days of work whereas
they actually worked only six (and this was later reduced to five and a half),
and received in addition sixty days pay as a bonus each year. The United
Steelworkers of America, which works closely with the IMF but not with
ORIT, has rendered assistance to the Venezuelan unions on such matters as
wage problems, time and motion studies, etc. In 1962 a representative
from the American federation took part as an advisor to the Venezuelan
union in its negotiations with the government-owned steel plant. During
the 1959 steel strike the United Steelworkers brought two Venezuelans to
the U. S. for three months to study strike techniques and contract negotia
tions. In 1963 it paid the expenses for three Colombians and one Venezuelan —
Carlos V. Amonti — to study for two and one-half months in the U.S. The
United Steelworkers had its book on the 1959 steel strike in the U.S. trans
lated into Spanish — La Huelga de los Trabajadores del Acero en 1959 —
and distributed to labor leaders in Latin America, including Venezuela. It
also publishes Spanish editions of collective contracts negotiated in the
U.S. for distribution in Latin America, one set for the blue collar workers
17 Interview with Meyer Bernstein and Dean Clowes. 73, and another for the white collar workers. In 1962 representatives of the
United Steelworkers of America met with the International Metalworkers
Federation in Duisburg, Germany, with 118 of the largest steel companies of the free world represented. Information from this meeting was published in six langpiages, including Spanish, and was made available to the Venezuelan 18 unions.
Miners* International Federation.
The MIF, which was founded in 1890 in Manchester, England and which now claims some 24,000 members in Latin America, has no national affiliate in
Venezuela, as four out of the seven mine workers* unions in Venezuela are controlled by the Communists. However, it is hoped that a Venezuelan federa tion of metal and mine workers will be set up within the next year or so which can seek affiliation with the International Metalworkers Federation.
Albert Kemetmuller, the new permanent co-ordinator of the MIF for Latin 19 America, makes his headquarters in Santiago, Chile.
Public Services International.
The PSI has a part-time representative for Latin America who operates out of Panama, and an associate representative, also part-time, who is based in Washington, D.C., both of whom have been in touch with Venezuelan unions since February 1960, when the first PSI conference was held in the
Western Hemisphere. There is no Venezuelan federation affiliated to the
PSI, but several individual unions with an estimated 50-60,000 members are
Ibid.
1 9 Ibid; also, Inter-American Labor Bulletin. Issued monthly by the ORIT, published by the AFL/CIO, Washington, D.C. Vol. IV, Nos. 7-8, July- August 1963, p. 3. 74. 20 affiliated to the PSI.
International Federation of Commercial. Clerical and Technical Workers.
The IFCCTE, which now claims some 257,300 members in Latin America as a result of increased activity since its regional conference in Lima,
Peru in May 1960, has an affiliate in Venezuela — the Federation of Em ployees of Venezuela (FENADE). FENADE is a strong federation and maintains its own vocational training scheme and consumer co-operative. In May 1963
FENADE and the IFCCTE held a second two-week leadership training seminar in Maracaibo for thirty union leaders from the State of Zulia, with 21 courses in the usual subjects of union organization and administration.
International Transport Workers Federation.
Venezuela in 1961 was one of 33 federations (seven of which were in the Western Hemisphere) that affiliated with the ITF, which was founded in
London in 1896 and which now claims a total membership in Latin America of
241,713. Originally established for seafarers and dockers, the ITF now includes personnel from some 200 rail, road transport, waterway and aviation unions in seventy countries throughout the world. It maintains a sub secretariat for Latin America based in Mexico City which was created in
1955, and a separate director of regional affairs. During 1963 the ITF held an extensive seminar in Puerto Rico in which Venezuelan labor leaders 22 participated.
2 0 ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports, p. 270. 21 Ibid, p. 259; also, Inter-American Labor Bulletin. July-August 1963, p. 1.
22 Becu, Omar, "The ITF — An Outline of Its History and Activities." Free Labour World. No. 98, August 1958, p. 14; also. Interview with Andrew C. McLellan. 75.
Postal. Telegraph and Telephone International.
The PTTI , successor to the PTT which resulted from the French postal
workers* strike in 1910, claims some 79,428 members in Latin America and maintains a comprehensive labor program in Latin America, although as yet
it has no formal affiliate in Venezuela. William Doherty in April 1958
made contact with these workers in Venezuela, and there has been a constant
exchange of correspondence since between the Venezuelan unions and the PTTI.
General Workers Union.
The IFF, which represents unskilled and semi-skilled workers, claims
some 3,130 members in Latin America, but there is no affiliate in Venezuela
and no efforts at present to create one.
International Federation of Food and Allied Workers.
The lUF (also called the F AW), which claims 39,104 members in Latin
America, has a Venezuelan affiliate.
Augusto Mallave Villalba, secretary-general of the CTV who spent part
of his exile years in Honduras, is believed to be interested in promoting
in Venezuela a program similar to the one sponsored by the lUF in 1962 in
Honduras. Communists were trying to penetrate the villages surrounding
the banana zone in Honduras, and the lUF sponsored a program in which 158
village leaders were brought together for classes in community development —
agrarian reform, training in parliamentary procedures, and basic elementary
schooling. Andrew C. McLellan, now Director of International Affairs for
the AFL/CIO for Latin America, set up the program as the representative of
the lUF. As a result of this program, the Honduran National Association of
Rural Workers was organized in September 1962 with some 7,200 members; it 76. now claims over 12,000 members. It is believed that Mallave*s interest in the Honduran program may lead to lUF sponsorship of a similar program in 23 Venezuela.
International Federation of Plantation and Allied Agricultural Workers.
The IFPAAW, which operates several projects in Brazil, Honduras, San
Salvador, Peru and elsewhere under the direction of a regional representative and four organizers, has been in correspondence with the leader of the
Venezuelan Rural Workers* Confederation (FCV). Armando Gonzalez, who heads this 700,000 member confederation, has asked IFPAAW for technical assistance.
Gonzalez mentioned the possibility of holding an Inter-American Conference and said that he had already discussed the matter with ORIT and with Arturo
Jauregui, who was in complete agreement with him. Malave Villalba is also interested in promoting affiliation of the FCV to the IFPAAW. Malave is familiar with the IFPAAW program in Honduras, where wives of leaders of the
Banana Workers* Union on the North Coast of Honduras are being trained in literacy and handicrafts. The classes have produced additional income for the wives and families of Honduran trade union leaders. Forty houses have been built, and the IFPAAW maintains its own radio station in Honduras.
Affiliation of the Venezuelan federation, which appears to be in the offing, will undoubtedly lead to similar programs being conducted among the peasants and farm workers in Venezuela.
o q Interview with Andrew C. McLellan.
Ibid; also, ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports. p. 268; also, Forrest, "Venezuela*s Democratic Revolution." Free Labour World, November 1962, p. 417. 77,
International Textile and Garment Workers Union.
The ITGWF, which was founded in 1894 and which claims 39,500 members in Latin America, has no affiliate and no program in Venezuela. However, its future activities include a proposal to establish a Pan-American Re gional Organization of Textile and Garment Workers Unions in co-operation with ORIT and the ICFTU. This would lead to increased activity which could also include Venezuela.
Other ITS operating in Latin America are the Graphic Arts International. which has no Venezuelan affiliate although the Venezuelan union of graphical workers is strong; and the International Federation of Journalists, to which
Venezuela's federation is also affiliated. There is no teachers and no entertainment workers ITS operating in Latin America; however, as mentioned in an earlier chapter, the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers is affiliated to the Conference of American Educators, and the Radio and TV Professional
Workers Union of Venezuela has been a member since May 1962 of the Inter-
American Federation of Entertainment Workers, an independent group which was founded in Lima and which now has headquarters in Mexico.^®
Any attempt to evaluate the accomplishments of the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS in
Venezuela must be predicated first upon the political or governmental climate in which the labor movement in a country must operate; and secondly upon the relative strengths and weaknesses of the individual national union
ICFTU Report on Activities 1960-62 and Financial Reports, p. 272.
Interview with Andrew C. McLellan. 78. or federation and its ITS counterpart, as well as the ORIT. Whereas during the Perez Jimenez regime international democratic organizations were limited to moral censure of the government and financial and technical and educational assistance to the exiles — a factor of prime importance in the rebuilding of the labor movement after 1958; under the Betancourt administra tion the ORIT and ITS — and the ICFTU until it ceased its unilateral parti cipation after 1961 — have been able to step up their activities and educational programs and increase their affiliates.
As a second consideration, the Venezuelan unions themselves are strongly oriented towards the democratic organizations and concepts. Twice, as
pointed out in previous chapters, the CTV has purged its ranksof Communists, first in 1945 to 1948 and again after 1958, both times under a government that was favorable to labor and to peaceful social revolution. Thus most of the Venezuelan unions today are able to participate fully and to play a
role of leadership in ORIT and ITS sponsored programs.
Finally, the difficulties which ORIT encountered during its formative
years in the 1950*8, largely the result of personal dissensions at the
leadership level, have to a great extent been ironed out, and, as pointed
out earlier, ORIT today is co-operating rather than competing with the ITS
in the educational and organizational field of labor programs. Much of the
credit for this goes to the AFL/CIO to which the U.S. affiliates of the ITS
are also affiliated.
The objectives of the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS were clearly stated by Ben Segal,
International Affairs and Education Director of the International Union of
Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers in the April 1963 issue of Free Labour 79.
World. Mr. Segal wrote: "There Is a revolutionary ferment in Latin America.
We need to give it all positive assistance and help channel it into a demo cratic direction. To do otherwise would leave a clear field to the Com munists ."
In achieving these objectives, U.S. labor interests — which will be discussed at greater length in a later chapter — have played a leading role by co-operating fully with the ITS and ORIT through organizations and mechanisms developed in connection with the Alliance for Progress. Their efforts have placed a new emphasis on U.S. policies towards the Latin American peoples and their governments, and have been particularly effective in assisting the Venezuelan government to weather the crises provoked by pro-
Castro terrorists. Thus, again, the accomplishments of the ORIT/ITS, in the light of their efforts and successes in Venezuelan labor since the advent of a reform minded, pro-labor government in Venezuela, must also be viewed in context in relation to the change in U.S. policies towards Latin America since 1958. CHAPTER VII
CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
This chapter will discuss the influence and activities of the Christian democratic labor organizations — CISC and CLASC — in Venezuela, their assis tance in the labor education field, and their degree of co-operation on national, regional and international levels with the ICFTU/ORIT. As has been pointed out previously, this co-operation in Venezuela has resulted in isolating the Communist dominated labor unions and has resulted in two successful purges of the CTV. On the other hand, regional and international dissensions which are evident at the present time could conceivably render co-operation on the national level a more tenuous alignment than has existed before.
In an attempt to evaluate the strength of this co-operation in Venezuela, particularly in the light of past and present dissensions on higher levels, it will be necessary to describe the development of the Christian labor movement in Venezuela.
Since 1935 the power of the Catholic Church, which was virtually des troyed by Guzman Blanco (1870-1888), has been making a comeback in Venezuela, as clerical identification with the nation's social revolution has brought increasing support from the masses. However, the Christian democratic seg ment of the labor movement represents only a small percentage of the total membership of the CTV, eighty-five per cent of which represents other non- 1 denominational political parties.
The Christian labor hierarchy in Venezuela today consists of the Com mittee of Autonomous Unions (CODESA) — an outgrowth of the Circulo de
^ Labor Law and Practice in Venezuela. Bureau of Labor Statistics Report No. 212, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., December 1961, p. 4. 81.
Caracas (COC) — which d a i m s to be politically neutral; the Christian Social
Workers Front (FTC), which is an organization of Christian trade unionists within the CTV who are also members of COPEI ; and the Central Committee of
Christian Trade Unionists (CUBIC), which was organized in 1959 to study
the common problems and co-ordinate the activities of the FTC and the
CODESA. CUSIC is the representative organization for Christian trade 2 unionism in Venezuela in international relations.
The COC was founded in July 1945 by Father Manuel Aguirre Elorriaga,
S.J. and a group of Catholic workers. Its aims were to strengthen the con
cept of family and the principles of Christian living. It was open to any
worker or employee who professed Christian principles and precepts. Under
the direction of COC the Association of Domestic Employees was founded in
1947 by Lucrecla de Guevara, who is still active in the Christian labor movement. Other leaders of COC who play a leading role in Venezuela today
are Juan Bautista Silva, Angel Sarratud, and Damaso Villegas. Father Aguirre
published SIC. a monthly magazine with a series of articles about the Chris
tian social democratic labor movement. During the reign of Perez Jimenez the
COC clandestinely held courses in trade union organization, and from 1953 to
1957 Father Aguirre gave special trade union courses to workers in the Andes 3 region.
Another organization was also founded during the rule of Perez Jimenez —
the Fraternal Union of Directors of the Social Catholic Action (FUNDASC).
2 Pueblo. No. 38, November 1962.
^ Ibid. 82.
This organization held three trade union classes a year clandestinely from
1948 to 1958. In January 1958 FUNDASC met at a congress and organized the
CODESA, with Father Aguirre and many of the COC leaders participating as key figures. Felix Manuel Luces became secretary-general of CODESA; Juan
Bautista Silva became first national president; Damaso Villegas, secretary of finances; Ramon Silva, secretary of organization (Silva is also a director of the trade union institute INES); Laureano Ortiz, secretary of services and a national director of CODESA; William Franco Casallns, also a national director; and Dr. Aristides Calvani , who was also the founder of 4 COFETROV, became legal adviser of CODESA.
CODESA stresses the need to limit night work, to give a more efficient social security, pensions, reform of labor legislation to ensure indemnity for voluntary retirement, better conditions of work for domestic employees, and the establishment of co-operatives, popular credit, etc. Professional unions affiliated to CX)DESA include the Union of Workers of Food Products, the Venezuelan Union of Workers of All America Cables, and the Autonomous
Union of Mercados and its affiliates of the Federal District and the State of Miranda. The Union of Workers of Food Products, which was founded by distributors of pasteurized milk in Caracas, was aided by CODESA to negotiate a collective contract. CODESA publishes the newspaper Pueblo. which is directed by Laureano Ortiz and edited by William Franco Casalins. CODESA held its first national convention in January 1961 with delegates elected directly from over 100 unions and rural workers* groups throughout the
4 Ibid. 83 country. Elections were held in regional conventions in the many states of 5 Venezuela,
Working closely with CODESA is the Federation of Catholic Workers (FTC), which was originally organized as the Committee for the Federation of Or ganized Workers of Venezuela (COFETROV). The FTC acts as the labor arm of
COPEI; its national director is Jose Camacho; Laureano Ortiz, who is also on the directorate of CODESA, is its secretary-general. The FTC is not a trade union organization but a Christian faction within the Venezuelan trade 6 union movement.
Acting as co-ordinator between the FTC and the CODESA is the CUSIC, which is headquartered in Caracas. Its president is Santiago Tortoza;
Dagoberto Gonzalez, one of the founders of the Christian trade union move ment in Venezuela, is secretary-general of CUSIC and FTC deputy in the
National Congress; Nelson Pinto, the Secretary of Labor of the Federation of Workers of the Federal District and State of Miranda, is a member of the National Directorate of the FTC and of the Directorate of CUSIC; Ale jandro Marcano Coelle is treasurer ; Laureano Ortiz, assistant treasurer; and Ramon H. Silva is Director of Training. Thus many of the key officers have dual positions within the three segments of the Christian trade union 7 movement.
CUSIC reports a membership of 20,000, as compared with CISC's claim to 716,165 members in Latin America and the Caribbean area, of which 75,465 are reported as trade union members and 640,700 as extraordinary members of
® Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 84.
CISC. Venezuela originally affiliated to CISC in the latter category, ac cording to provisions in the CISC charter that organizations which do not have the form of trade union federations but which recognize the principles
and the program of CISC shall be eligible for extraordinary membership. 8 She has been a member of the regional organization, CLASC, since 1963.
1. RELATIONS WITH CISC AND CLASC
Emilio Haspero, a thirty-three year old Argentine, is Executive Secre
tary for the Caribbean Zone of CLASC and also secretary-general of CLASC.
He is headquartered in Caracas, and is the technical adviser of CODESA as well as the director of the Venezuelan International Institute of Trade
Union Studies (INES) in Venezuela. In this capacity he has direct contact with the rank-and-file trade unionists in the country. His assistant secre
tary for Central America, Andres Merc au, is also based in Caracas. In addi
tion, Nicholas Pollard of British Honduras, who has been Assistant Secretary
for the British Area under Maspero, has recently been given responsibility
for the Caribbean area, including Venezuela, because of Maspero*s present 9 function as secretary-general of CLASC.
Venezuelan labor leaders have been active participants in both CLASC
/ and CISC. Francisco Urquia Lugo is the Venezuelan member of the Executive
Committee of CLASC, as well as subsecretary-general of the FTC and Secretary
of Labor of the CTV. Venezuela has no affiliate to either of the two CLASC
trade internationals in Latin America. However, J. R. Rangel Parra, a
Venezuelan, is an officer on the Peasant Federation of Latin America, one of
8 Directory of International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (CISC) , U.S. Department of Labor, W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, May 1663; also. Interview on 4 December 1963 with Arnold Stein- bach, Special Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor.
® Ibid. 85.
the trade internationals, and the Christian political party COPEI has been making dramatic strides in organizing the rural workers in Venezuela. 10 CLASC held its first seminar for rural workers in Chile in December 1961.
In addition, Venezuelan delegates have participated in each of the
four congresses of CLASC, and in the seminars that preceded each congress.
Elio Aponte and Alirio Lugo headed the delegation to the founding congress
on 8 December 1954 at Santiago, along with representatives of Argentina,
Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. Representatives were
also present from Venezuela at the second congress of CLASC in November 1957
at Santiago and at the third congress in Quito October to November 1959.
Twelve delegates from CUSIC attended the Quito conference. The fourth re
gional congress was held in Caracas in November 1962 with about 350 dele
gates from Latin American countries in attendance. It was at this congress
that CUSIC decided to seek affiliation to CLASC. Venezuelan delegates in
cluded Santiago Tortoza, president of CUSIC and a member of the national
committee of CODESA; (Tortoza had attended the CISC World Congress held in
West Berlin, and had later visited the ILO offices in Switzerland); Elio
Aponte Gonzalez, member of the Executive Committee of the CTV and also of
FEDEPETROL, as well as a member of the national directorate of the FTC;
Gonzalo Navarro, President of the CTV; and Aristides Calvani, legal adviser
to CODESA, The Venezuelan delegates also took an active part in organizing
the seminar which was held immediately preceding the fourth congress in
Caracas. Thirteen members of the Panamanian Isthmian Federation of Christian
Ibid; also, Pueblo. November 1962. 86.
Workers (FITC) were among the students attending this seminar. At the fourth congress CLASC announced that it had established two institutes on a conti nental level to provide courses in labor leadership, one in Montevideo,
Uruguay and the other in Caracas. In addition, a regional training center, the National Institute for Promotion of Trade Unionism, was to be established in Mexico City for labor leaders in Mexico and the five Central American countries. The first international course was planned for October 1963,
/ 11 with Manuel Rodriguez Lapuitente, a lawyer, as the director.
Assistance to Labor Education.
CISC carries out its educational activities through five institutes and local seminars managed by regional organizations. The International In stitute of Labor Studies in Paris, which completed its first eighteen-month course in July 1960, was attended by 31 participants, twelve of whom were from Latin America. Several Venezuelan trade unionists who today are active in the Christian labor movement attended, including Rafael Arturo Diaz, a member of the National Committee of CODESA; Miguel Gonzalez Escobar, a deputy of the legislature in Aragua and regional secretary-general of CODESA in Aragua State; and Placido Miralles, secretary of organization of CODESA 12 in the State of Tachira.
These and others participated in founding the National Institute for
Trade Union Studies (INES) on 15 May 1961 in Caracas. Idea for the INES grew out of talks between the FTC and CODESA from 1958 to February 1959.
Pueblo. November 1962. 12 Pueblo. November 1962. 87.
INES began with night classes in the Catholic University Andres Bello and with study trips in June 1959 in Boleita, Caracas. By the end of 1960 night courses were underway in Caracas and in the interior by directors and active members of CODESA. In December 1961 INES began its first inter national course, which was attended by exiled trade union leaders of the
Dominican Republic, by labor leaders from Argentina, Puerto Rico and the
U.S., as well as directors from Colombia and Venezuela who participated.
During 1962 over fifty courses were given, attended by over 1,000 workers.
INES today has its own building, a library, and a dormitory that faces the mountains of Avila. A Center of Social Investigations was also formed to consolidate the Publications Center and the Library. INES students have
included unionists from the Caribbean and Central America as well as from
South America. INES is financed partly by the Government of Venezuela,
and partly by the Meseror. or Catholic Bishops* Fund of Germany and France, 13 which has also rendered financial assistance to CLASC and CISC.
The Ebert Foundation, a Christian socialist educational institute named after Friedrich Ebert, first president of the German Republic, has been interested in various projects to assist the Christian trade union movement, as has been the Institute for International Solidarity (IIS), which was founded sometime during December 1962 to render assistance to
developing countries, and which is a sub-division of the political academy
Eischholz in Bonn, Germany. In the spring of 1963 a young German employee
of the Eischholz Academy was sent to Caracas as an organizer and adviser.
13 Ibid; also, Interview with Arnold Steinbach. 88.
In addition, the Eischholz is going to take six young Latin Americans from
Venezuela and Chile to begin a course of training at the Free University of
Berlin under the auspices of the IIS. After completion of their training these students will return to their respective countries to staff centers which the IIS is planning in Caracas and Santiago. It is anticipated that they will work in co-operation with the INES, although their work will in 14 clude a number of "community development" type projects in addition to labor.
11. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHRISTIAN AND DEMOCRATIC LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
In previous chapters we have discussed the co-operation on both the political and the labor level between the AD/CTV and the COPEI/CUSIC-FTC-
CODESA groups in Venezuela, and how this co-ordination of effort between two forces with similar ideologies and concepts made possible a democratically oriented labor movement in Venezuela. It was also pointed out that this unity of democratic forces is in large measure responsible for the failure of the Communists to capture control of the labor movement in Venezuela.
This co-operation on the national level is still strong; it will, however, inevitably be affected by developments on the regional and international levels of the labor movement. In this connection, certain developments in recent months tend to indicate a weakening of the labor movement which national labor leaders should recognize and prepare to correct. This is evident both in internal dissensions within the CISC/CLASC hierarchy as well as in relations between the Christian groups and the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS.
First of all, some of the CISC leaders, including the secretary-general,
14 Interview with Arnold Steinbach. 89.
August Vanlstendael, advocate removing the word "Christian" entirely from the CISC, and CISC affiliates in several of the newly formed African and
Asian countries are referred to as the "Confederation of Believing Workers."
Vanlstendael is apparently supported by Maspero in this effort; on the other hand, he is opposed by a wide segment of the Christian labor movement in 15 countries such as Venezuela where the Catholic Church is a strong influence.
This takes on added significance in view of the financial assistance ren dered by the Catholic bishops in France and Germany, which has been mentioned previously in this chapter. In addition, the fact that there is controversy within the CISC hierarchy will undoubtedly lead to dissensions at the regional and national levels.
Another example of weakness within the CLASC hierarchy was pointed out by Monsignor George G . Higgins in The Yardstick of September 30, 1963.
Honsignor Higgins refers to a letter which he had received from Nicholas
Pollard, who now has jurisdiction over Venezuela and the Caribbean for
CLASC, in which Mr. Pollard said that the American labor unions were secular and neutral and essentially inadequate from the viewpoint of Catholic social teaching, and in which he asked Monsignor Higgins to explain the hostility of the American unions against the Christian unions of Latin America.
Monsignor Higgins, in reply, referred to a speech made by Mr. Pollard in Belize, British Honduras in August 1963, in which Mr. Pollard had heartily endorsed Russian Communism and had said that Russia would change the morale and raise the standards of workers all over the world. Monsignor
Interview with Arnold Steinbach. 90.
Higgins writes:
His (Pollard*s) own speech is a partial answer to this question. After all, the American labor movement can hardly be expected to wink at pro-Communist demagoguery in Latin America or anywhere else. This is not to say that the policy of the American labor movement with regard to the Christian unions of Latin America is defensible in all respects. . . But its opposition to Pollard*s brand of quackery is anything but a mistake. Indeed the American labor movement has an obligation to denounce this kind of demagogic rhetoric in the strongest possible terms. I might also suggest that the International Federation of Christian Trade Unions is faced with identically the same responsi bility, And the sooner it faces up to this responsibility, the better it will be for the cause of legitimate trade unionism in Latin America and for the cause of labor unity south of the border. The very least that the Christian International can be expected to do at this stage is to disassociate Itself formally and officially from the incredlbly^g weird views expressed by Mr. Pollard in his recent speech in Belize.
Further dissensions are also evident on the regional level. Maspero has said that ORIT was a failure for lack of a positive ideology and that the CISC offers a better weapon for combatting Communism in Latin America.
At the fourteenth congress of CISC held in Paris from June to July 1961,
CLASC Joined in forming a solid bloc to propose Christianity as a third world and a third force to save humanity from the brutality of Communism and Capitalism — an atomic war or world slavery and totalitarianism.
Later, at the 1963 Labor Ministers* Conference in Bogota"^, Colombia, at which both ORIT and CLASC were represented, CLASC complained that it was being suppressed by ORIT, yet CLASC had more representatives present than
ORIT. ORIT, for its part, refused to issue a joint statement on objectives 17 which CLASC had proposed.
3.6 The Yardstick - Catholic Tests of a Social Order, by Monsignor George G. Higgins, Director, Social Action Department, National Catholic Welfare Conference (N.C.W.C.), for release week of September 30, 1963. 17 Interview with Arnold Steinbach. 91.
Even on the national level, where as we have seen co-operation does exist, Pueblo. the organ of 00DE8A, describes the ORIT as being of "Socialist 18 inspiration, with evident compromise with the foreign policies of the U.S.A."
Such conflicts can only further the cause of Communism in Venezuela as in the rest of Latin America. Disagreements and dissensions are inevitable in any population grouping of the size and scope of the democratic and
Christian democratic world-wide labor organizations; yet these dissensions must be subordinated at all levels — national, regional and international — if the cause of democratic labor is to succeed in Latin America. Disagree ments need not, and should not, produce disunity when basic ideological concepts and aims are the same. Venezuela has been a prime example of the strength which democratic forces can attain by working in unity. Division and disharmony, when permitted to override the ultimate aim of creating and maintaining a democratic labor movement, can work to the advantage only of the Communists. The maintenance of unity should therefore be a prime con sideration of American labor unions and organizations working in conjunction with the aims and principles set forth by the Alliance for Progress. Their efforts in Venezuela, operating as the "labor arm" of the Alliance, will be discussed in the next chapter.
1 8 Pueblo. November 1962, p. 14. CHAPTER VIII
U.S. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LABOR PROGRAMS
When the Alliance for Progress was formally established on 16 August
1061 by the Charter of Punte del Este, U.S. policy towards Latin America became officially acknowledged as one of co-operative effort on a vast scale with the Latin American republics to satisfy the basic needs of the people of the Western Hemisphere. This charter specifically called for co-operation in the labor field between the U.S. and the Latin American nations on the levels of governments, employer associations or management, and trade union organizations, and officially recognized the need for full participation by the trade unions of both North and South America in planning and executing the programs of the Alliance for Progress.^
Implementation of the Alliance, although retarded in some countries because of opposition by government and management, particularly in the
field of economic and tax reforms, has in the case of Venezuela been ex
cellent in the labor field because of the pro-labor position of the Betan court government and the progressive policies of management, particularly
in the large U.S. companies, and also because of the high degree of demo cratic orientation of the top Venezuelan labor leaders in both the AD and
the Christian democratic labor movements.
This chapter will discuss the work and progress of the Alliance for
Progress in the labor field in Venezuela in two aspects: (1) The field of
labor education, first as implemented by U.S. labor interests and secondly
as developed by the Venezuelan labor groups; and (2) The field of social or
community projects which have a direct bearing on the labor movement, as
^ "The Trade Union in the Alliance for Progress," El Correo. San Jose, Costa Rica, 11 November 1963. 93. implemented first by the U.S. government and allied Interests and secondly
by the Venezuelan government, management and trade union organizations.
These two aspects will be reviewed in connection with the AIFLD, which func
tions as the "labor arm" of the Alliance for Progress for the purpose of
training workers on the meaning and responsibility of free trade unionism
in a democratic society and of helping them to develop their own sources of
credit for building homes and other community projects.
I. LABOR EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF THE AIFLD
The AIFLD is sponsored and supported by the AFL/CIO and its many
affiliates, by leading U.S. business interests, and by the AID. Its
executive director is Mr. Serafino Romualdi, former Inter-American Repre
sentative of the AFL/CIO; its president is Mr. George Meany, vdio is also
president of the AFL/CIO. Officers and members of the board of directors
are; J. Peter Grace, Chairman of the Board; Kenneth Holland, vice-president
and member of the board of directors; Berent Friele, vice-chairman of the
board; Joseph A. Beirne, secretary-treasurer; and Chase Mellen Jr., finan
cial secretary. Its staff includes: Mr. Samuel Haddad, Program Director
of the Department of Labor Education which works closely with the AFL/CIO,
and his assistant, Mr. Jose Estrada ; Mr. William C. Doherty Jr., Chief of
the Social Projects Department which works with the AID and other U.S.
government agencies in sponsoring co-operative and other community projects
aimed at Improving the living standards and productivity levels of labor;
Otto Pragan, Professor of Collective Bargaining and currently assistant
director of the Department of Education of the AFL/CIO; and Morris Horowitz,
professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, who is 94. 2 academic consultant and teacher of labor economics.
Six training courses have been given by the AIFLD during the past two years, the last beginning in early January 1964. Training at the AIFLD center in Washington, D.C. is at a high level in three basic fields — economics, labor and ideology — with instructors from the AFL/CIO and other labor groups lecturing on such subjects as labor economics, techniques of organization, problems of industrialization, democratic orientation, labor history and structure, labor education, collective bargaining, and the role of free labor in modern society. In addition, a one week training course is conducted on co-operatives, with instructors brought up from
Latin America to lecture in this field. The recent reorganization of the
AIFLD training program was designed to provide three courses a year, on the post-graduate level, for some thirty to thirty-five students, or about 100 per year, who have achieved an outstanding degree of success in the courses in their own country before coming to Washington. Of these top students, some eight or ten participants in each course will be selected to take part in the new foreign travel program which AIFLD is now conducting to Italy,
Israel and Germany. This program developed following Mr. Romualdi*s trip in May-June 1963 to Italy and Israel for the purpose of better co-ordinating the programs in these countries to the needs of the Latin American students.
Particularly promising graduates of the AIFLD center in Washington, D.C. are selected for an additional six to seven weeks training abroad. They are sponsored by the Israel national confederation, HISTADRUT, which has a very
^ The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, No. 6, December 1963, p.6. 95. well developed co-operative movement and thus provides on-the-job training in co-operatives; by the Ebert Foundation in Germany, which was selected because of its high degree of industrialization as the country for further on-the-job training in industries; and by the democratic labor groups in
Italy, which offers an excellent opportunity for Ideological comparisons because of its three legally recognized labor movements — the Social
Democratic or Republican, the Christian Democratic and the Communist con- 3 federations.
A wide variety of Venezuelan labor leaders have participated as students in the AIFLD training courses. The three Venezuelans who attended the first course represented, respectively, the Venezuelan oil workers federation, FEDEPETROL; the Graphic Arts Union; and the Bank Workers*
Union. Venezuelan students in the second course were the following:
Oscar Estrada, secretary-general and full-time officer of the 3500-member
Professional Union of Textile Workers in the Federal District and State of
Miranda, who was sponsored by the CTV; Carlos J. Paredes Arclla, Relations and Cultural Secretary of the 8,000-member Federation of Workers of the
State of Trujillo, who was sponsored by the PSI International Trade Secre tariat and who is an employee of the Venezuelan government in the Department of Interior Relations ; Jaime Alonso Quintero Moreno, Secretary of Grievances of the 150-member Union of Organized Petroleum Workers in Maracaibo and full time officer of the Union of Petroleum Workers in the Departments of Miranda and Zulia, who was sponsored by the Christian Democratic training center, the
INES; Jose Rodriguez Saez, Secretary of Grievances of the 188-member Union
The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, Nol, July 1963, p. 1; also. Interview with Mr. Jose Estrada, Assistant Program Director, Department of Labor Education, AIFLD, on 16 December 1963. 96. of Hydrocarbide Petroleum of Tucupido and an oil worker at Varcol Petro leum, who was also sponsored by the INES; and Guillermo E. Torrealba
Huerta, Secretary of Agriculture and Labor and full-time officer of the
15,000-member Venezuelan Rural Workers Federation (FCV) in the State of
Zulia, who was sponsored by the CTV. Venezuelans attending the fifth course were Emilio Carrizalez, Secretary-General of the 12,000-member
Mongas State Federation of Workers and a public employee by occupation, who was sponsored by the CTV; and Campo Ellas Morales Villalobos, Grievance
Chairman of the 400-member Electrical Workers* Union of the State of Zulia and an oil worker in Compania Shell de Venezuela, Ltd., who was sponsored by the CTV. These two students, following completion of their training at the AIFLD center, were selected to participate in the new foreign travel program; they left on 13 December 1963 for Israel for additional training in the co-operative movement by HISTADRUT. Upon completion of their training at the AIFLD center, and at the foreign centers for those selected to parti cipate in this new travel program, Venezuelan graduates return to their country to serve an internship of seven to nine months, during which time the AIFLD pays their salaries based on what they were making before coming to Washington to attend the course. During their internship period these men are controlled and supervised by their sponsoring organization. The
CTV, if it has been the sponsoring organization, usually uses them as or ganizers or labor educators to conduct training classes and seminars through out Venezuela in labor economics, labor history and structure, including col lective bargaining, and democratic orientation — the three general aspects 4 of the training courses at the AIFLD center in Washington.
^ Interview with Jos^ Estrada 97.
II. LABOR EDUCATION SPONSORED BY AIFLD IN VENEZUELA
AIFLD also has a labor training program in Venezuela. Both the CTV and the Christian democratic labor organizations In Venezuela work in associa tion with AIFLD in this educational work. The Institute for Trade Union
Leadership, which is directed by Manuel Penalver of the executive committee of the CTV, was founded in 1962 with the co-operation of AIFLD. Some 100
Venezuelan labor leaders from Industrial as well as agricultural unions have been trained at this center. Mr. Romualdi was in Caracas in June 1963
and addressed the graduating class of thirty-eight students attending the third course given at the Institute, which was then temporarily recessed because of the December 1963 elections and the active involvement of labor 5 unions in these elections.
Members of the labor-management-government advisory committee of the
Institute met on 14 November 1063 in Caracas to plan the 1964 program of the Institute, which was reopened in January 1964 after the elections.
This meeting was attended by U.S. representatives of AIFLD; by Augusto
Malave Villalba and Manuel Penalver of the CTV ; by two representatives of the Cultural Education Association (ACFE) , an association largely supported 6 by management; and by a representative of the Venezuelan Ministry of Labor.
The new program for the Institute as outlined by these leaders will consist of four resident courses in 1964 of eight weeks each, to be attended by thirty labor leaders in each course. Classes will be held in a building
* The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, No. 2, August 1963, p.3.
® The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, No. 4, October 1963, p.5 and Vol. 1, No. 6, December 1963, pp. 1 and 4. 98. outside the center of Caracas which was donated by the Venezuelan government, and which will include living quarters as well as classrooms and recrea tional facilities for the students. In addition, thirty regional seminars will be held in industrial centers throughout Venezuela to provide basic labor education courses from which the better qualified candidates will be selected to attend the Institute's residential course. Still another project for the Institute during 1964 will be a high-level, two-week seminar on the Venezuelan economy and labor movement for top ranking labor leaders.
This seminar will be conducted as a round-table discussion for about 25
Venezuelan labor leaders, with economists from both Venezuela and the U.S. 7 chairing the sessions.
Other activities of the CTV in connection with Venezuelan implementa tion of the Alliance for Progress in the field of labor education are worthy of mention at this point. These activities, although not educa tional in the sense of Institute or seminar training, nevertheless have a direct relationship to the field of labor education and will therefore be discussed briefly.
One of these activities is the exchange of tourists between the unions of Venezuela and the U.S. which is being arranged by CIRCLEVEN C.A., a private tourist agency in Venezuela which is sponsored by the CTV and also by the
Venezuelan government. The Washington representative of CIRCLEVEN is co ordinating this tourist exchange in the Washington area for U.S. labor leaders and trade unionists. Lester Zosel, International Representative of the
^ Ibid. 99.
Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, was one of twenty-one AFL/CIO representatives and their wives named by AFL/CIO President George Me any to make the first
CIRCLEVEN trip to Venezuela early in 1963. Another tour was scheduled to start in the fall of 1963.®
The other activity of the CTV was the five-day First Trade Union Con ference on the Alliance for Progress, which was sponsored by the National
Association of Employees (ANDE), an affiliate of the CTV. Leaders from various economic sectors of Venezuela were present, as were also Arturo
Jauregui Hurtado, secretary-general of GRIT; Hernan Charneco, Puerto Rican
Federation of Consumers* Co-operatives; and the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela,
C. Allan Stewart. It was agreed at this conference that trade unions should participate more fully in meetings and conferences of the Alliance for 9 Progress in developing self-help measures for the people.
Thus in the field of labor education substantial progress is being made in Venezuela to implement the aims of the Alliance for Progress in co operation with U.S. public and private labor programs. This progress is possible only when, as is the case in Venezuela, government, management and trade unions co-operate; it is additionally strengthened, as can be seen in the case of Venezuela, when the democratic and Christian democratic labor groups co-ordinate their efforts through the AIFLD and work together to bring democratic concepts and bargaining skills to the rank-and-file unionists.
The system of regional seminars, higher level training at the CTV Institute
O Inter-American Labor Bulletin. July-August 1963, Vol. xiv. Nos. 7-8, p. 4.
® Ibid* September 1963, Vol. iv. No. 9, p. 3, 100.
and also at the INES, post-graduate training at AIFLD In Washington, D.C.,
and then the foreign travel program for particularly advanced and well-
qualified students not only provides incentives for advancement and study but also works to build a mature, sophisticated, solidly educated labor
leadership that is constantly reinforced and strengthened as younger unionists
follow through in the educational programs. The progress which has been
achieved in Venezuela has been possible by the solid backing of government
and management and the close support of the AIFLD and other U.S. labor in
terests in the field of labor education.
III. SOCIAL PROJECTS DEPARTMENT OF AIFLD
The second major function of the AIFLD, as mentioned previously, is
the Social Projects Department which is headed by William C. Doherty Jr.,
and which is concerned with consumer co-operatives, credit unions and
housing projects. This department works closely with and is assisted by
the AID and other U.S. government agencies. It was created as a result of
the Initial recommendations of the U.S. Labor Advisory Commission for the
Alliance for Progress, in accordance with the principles expressed in the
Punta del Este Charter which called for fair wages and satisfactory working
conditions, effective labor-management relations, better standards of
living for workers, and broader trade union participation in programs
aimed at achieving social and economic development. This policy has been
adopted by the U.S. Congress in appropriating Alliance for Progress funds
for both the Inter-American Development Bank and the AID. These principles
were reaffirmed at the Inter-American Conference of Labor Ministers in Bogota, 101. 10 Colombia In May 1963.
In the field of co-operatives, the AIFLD Social Projects Department has requested a one million dollar loan from the AID to finance a central warehouse for consumer goods in Venezuela, which would service about thirty
co-operative supermarkets. Ten of these markets, which have already been
established by the Federation of Sugar Cane Workers, are now operating and
are open to workers in various production fields, such as oil, tobacco and
public service. Land for the construction of these supermarkets was pro vided by the sugar companies, which have been working closely with the unions in organizing credit unions and other co-operative activities. In
another program in the co-operative field, AIFLD sent a labor co-operative
specialist to Venezuela to provide technical advice in organizing a co
operative printing plant which can be used by all democratic unions.
Ground space for this plant was donated by FEDEPETROL, which is also active 11 in other efforts in the co-operative field on behalf of its 40,000 members.
Another project being developed in Venezuela by the Social Projects
Department of the AIFLD is a trade union-sponsored workers' bank to provide
seed money and also long-term financing for trade union housing programs and
other co-operative enterprises. A preliminary agreement outlining the estab
lishment of such a bank was signed in Washington, D.C. on 16 October 1963 by
Mr. Doherty on behalf of the AIFLD and Augusto Malave Villalba for the CTV.
Preparatory to this agreement, six financial experts from AIFLD were sent to
The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, No. 3, September 1963, p. 6-7.
The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, No. 4, October 1963, p. 3 102.
Venezuela to survey the financial resources of organized workers there
and to determine what additional sources of income might be available for them. This team worked with CTV leaders, management officers and govern ment officials in conducting its survey. The establishment of such a bank
in Venezuela is expected to become a model for similar projects in other
countries.4. 4 12
IV. VENEZUELAN CO-OPERATION WITH THE SOCIAL PROJECTS DEPARTMENT
Close co-operation has existed at all levels of government, management
and trade unions in Venezuela in implementing social projects concerned
with credit unions, co-operatives and other community projects offering
direct benefits to labor. In this effort the Venezuelan Ministry of Labor
has taken the lead in assisting the already flourishing and expanding
credit union movement in Venezuela, which now has an estimated 100 credit
unions. The Ministry works closely with the U.S. Embassy and the Peace
Corps, with the Social Projects Department of AIFLD, and with the Christian
Democratic co-operative leader, Father J.C. Thielen, who conducts seminars
at the University of the Andes in Merida for credit union personnel and
operators. The Venezuelan Ministry of Labor also frequently conducts semi
nars on co-operatives. There is a growing federation of credit unions in
Venezuela for which two Venezuelans who were trained by the Credit Union 13 National Association (CUNA) in Madison, Wisconsin are now doing field work.
In addition, the Venezuelan Ministry of Labor, aware of the need for
Ibid; also, Inter-American Labor Bulletin. Vol. IV, No. 12, December 196:^. 13 U.S. Department of State Airgram A-215 , 1 October 1963, from American Embassy, Caracas, Subject: “Progress on Certain Recommendations of Inter- American Conference of Ministers of Labor,** p.1-3. 103. personnel and programs in labor statistics and related fields, has requested and received an advisor from the U.S. Department of Labor who has been assigned for two years with the Ministry under AID and the Alliance for
Progress to develop and exécuté a program of technical assistance and training for top officials in the Ministry in such fields as labor statis tics, manpower planning, employment service, apprenticeship programs, and industrial safety. Also, Dr. Victor Hugo Manzinilla, Secretary-General of
INCE, attended a three-month International Manpower Seminar in Washington, 14 D.C. in 1963 which was sponsored by AID and the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Venezuelan trade unions are also working closely with the co operative movements to provide a system of savings and capital growth through co-operative institutes which permit the worker to procure better housing, cheaper food, clothing, medical care, education and insurance, thus conserving and securing the higher wages which Venezuelan labor has achieved through collective bargaining, FEDEPETROL, as mentioned previously, operates credit unions for its members and recently signed an agreement with the oil companies whereby ten per cent of a worker's salary can be placed in a credit bank as seed money for co-operative housing. Also, the Sugar
Workers* Union in 1961 negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with the sugar companies whereby members may purchase their own homes through a sys tem of voluntary check-offs over a twenty-year period. Some 1500 new homes 15 were completed by December 1963.
14 U.S. Department of State Airgram A-215, p.1-3.
The AIFLD Report. Vol. 1, No. 4, October 1963, p. 3. 104.
Thus through co-operation between government, management and trade union leadership, in both the U.S. and Venezuela, progress is being made in implementing the goals of the Alliance for Progress in the field df community development. U.S. AID missions in Venezuela are organized and administered in such a way that they work closely with the Venezuelan government in surveying and determining the needs for financial assistance from the U.S., and in providing technical assistance to execute the programs 16 that are needed.
Co-ordination of effort on the part of government, management and trade unions in both the U.S. and Venezuela is responsible for the progress which has already been achieved and which is continuing on an expanded scale in Venezuela in the fields of labor education and social projects.
Lack of this co-ordination at any of these levels, as has occurred in other countries of Latin America, has served as a divisive factor and therefore a deterrent to carrying out the aims of the Alliance for Progress in the labor field. Venezuela, where co-operation and co-ordination of effort have been close, thus presents an excellent example of the progress that can be achieved and that was intended to be achieved with the switch in
U.S. policy towards multilateral implementation in the field of labor and socio-economic development under the Alliance for Progress in Latin America.
Beport to the Inter-American Economic and Social Council. Prepared by the Government of the U.S. for the Second Annual Meeting of the lAECOSOC Council at the Expert and Ministerial Levels, Sao Paulo, Brazil, October- November 1963. Washington, D.C., September 1963. p. 82. CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSION
In an analysis of the development of International labor in Latin
America, and particularly in Venezuela, which has been the case study in point, the relationship between labor and government, in both Venezuela and the U.S., has become apparent. Where governments friendly to labor have been in power in Venezuela, as in 1945 to 1948 and again since 1958, the labor movement in Venezuela has developed and strengthened as a democratic force. This development became increasingly significant after 1958 with the additional impetus given to the Latin American labor movements by U.S. labor programs which have been created as the result of the shift in U.S. policy towards Latin America during the past five years.
In discussing the development of international labor in Latin America as an area, we have seen the ineffectiveness with which U.S. and other democratic labor organizations, such as the PAFL and the CIT, operated during the years before 1945 when U.S. policies towards Latin America held the connotation of "Dollar Diplomacy" and the "Big Stick," By 1945, as has been pointed out, the Communists dominated the labor movement in Latin
America.
Similarly, as U.S. policies towards Latin America shifted after World
War II towards inter-American military and political co-operation and multi lateral action through the OAS, U.S. and other democratic labor interests were able to override the earlier implications of involvement with a U.S. foreign policy that was onerous to Latin America, and therefore became in creasingly able to render technical and other assistance to Latin America.
As the influence and impact of these organizations developed, the influence of the Communists on the Latin American labor movement declined. This was 106. particularly evident in the case of Venezuela, where a government (1945 to
1948) that was friendly to labor, but that was resented by the U.S. because of its program of social reforms that were not considered to be in the best
Interests of the U.S., was not able to sustain its development in the labor field. Ten years later, however, in 1958, a similar pro-labor government in Venezuela was able to sustain itself effectively against Communist terrorist methods, largely because of the firm support which a well trained and well organized, highly democratic labor confederation has consistently rendered to the Betancourt regime. The effectiveness with which labor has supported the present Venezuelan government, as we have discussed previously, is also due in large part to assistance rendered by the U.S. and other democratic labor programs.
Similarly, the ILO, the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS and the Christian Democratic labor organizations have had success in developing a democratic labor force in Venezuela during the years when a government friendly to labor has been in power, as in the years since 1958. During the period from 1948 to 1958, when Venezuela was ruled by a stagnant dictatorship, the role of the ILO, and the ICFTU/ORIT/ITS, was largely a negative one of protesting, but not being able to correct or improve, the discrimination against labor by the
Perez Jimenez regime. By the same token, with the establishment of a pro labor regime in Venezuela in 1958, these democratic organizations and also the Christian Democratic labor groups have bben able to provide technical support in the field of labor education, manpower surveys, etc. Again, as these democratic programs &ave been able to develop in Venezuela, under a government friendly to labor, the influence of Communism on the Venezuelan 107. labor movement has been proportionately negated.
The work of these democratic labor groups has been assisted by the shift in U.S. policies towards Latin America since 1958 and the multilateral approach through the OAS for a solution of hemispheric problems. The cul mination of this multilateral effort into the present policy of the Alliance for Progress, with the AIFLD as its labor arm, has assisted U.S. public and private labor programs in working with the Venezuelan and other Latin Ameri can labor confederations to develop sound principles of labor education and training in democratic orientation.
The progress made by these organizations in Venezuela since 1958 has been excellent. The labor movement, standing staunchly behind the socio economic reforms of the Betancourt government, has provided that government with the measure of strength needed to withstand terroristic pressures from the far left. The turn out to the polls of the Venezuelan people in the December presidential elections, in defiance of attempts by the FALN to prevent their voting, has been ample testimony of the effectiveness of the reforms promulgated by the Betancourt government and the confidence which the mass of people in Venezuela, including the labor segment of the population, has in the present regime. International non-Communist labor organizations have made an important contribution to these reforms.
Thus the strength and growth of the labor movement in Venezuela as a base support of a reform minded government seem thoroughly oriented in a
democratic direction, ably assisted by international labor. The one dis
turbing element that might interfere with this progress in the labor field
would, in the opinion of the writer, be a possible rift in Venezuela between 108. the democratic and the Christian Democratic organizations. This possibility has been discussed in previous chapters on these organizations, as have the advantages that can be derived from unity and co-ordination between demo cratic-minded labor organizations. U.S. labor interests, and particularly the AIFLD, have been quick to recognize the need for co-ordination and to promote harmony between these organizations. As has been pointed out, in
Venezuela both the CTV and the Christian Democratic labor school INES, have sent students to the AIFLD training program in Washington, D.C. This policy of working with both the democratic and Christian Democratic groups, which was initiated by the AIFLD, needs to be continued and strengthened and adopted by other U.S. labor organizations sponsoring educational and tech nical programs in Latin America. Coalition of the democratic and Christian
Democratic forces in Venezuela has been important in maintaining labor stability ; any weakening of this unity can only work towards the furtherance of the Communist cause in Venezuela. The strengthening of this unity, in
Venezuela as elsewhere in Latin America, therefore becomes the responsibility of the international and U.S. labor interests that wish to work with and to further the aims of the Alliance for Progress in the labor field.
Venezuela's success in withstanding the concerted efforts of a small but highly effective terroristic group to seize the government, illustrates the
importance of a democratic, well organized labor movement in which the demo cratic and Christian Democratic forces work in coalition against Communist
infiltration. The continuance of unity in the labor field therefore becomes
an important adjunct of the labor arm of the Alliance for Progress. The
leadership role in promoting and sustaining this co-ordination of effort be 109. comes the responsibility of the U.S. labor interests working in co-operation with the democratic and Christian Démocratie labor organizations on the national, regional and international levels. The degree of co-operation which these organizations are able to develop at all levels will be a major determinant in purging, and in keeping purged, the Venezuelan and other
Latin American labor confederations of Communist influence, and in thus carrying out the goals of the Alliance for Progress in the labor field in
Latin America. 110.
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(b) International Confederation of Free Trad^ Unions (Contd)
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(c) Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers
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(d) U.S. Labor Organizations
CWA News. Official Journal of the Communications Workers of America. Vol. XXII, No. 10, October 1963.
Inter-American Labor Bulletin. Issued Monthly by the ORIT, Published by the AFL/CIO, Washington, D.C. Vol. IV, Nos. 7-8, July-August 1963; No. 9, September 1963; Nos. 10-11, October-November 1963; and No. 12, December 1963.
The AIFLD Report. Published Monthly by the American Institute for Free Labor Development Beginning July 1963. Vol. 1, Nos. 1 through 6, July-December 1963. 115. C . INTERVIEWS
Bernstein, Meyer, International Affairs Director, United Steelworkers of America. Interviewed on 13 December 1963.
Clowes, Dean, International Affairs Representative, United Steelworkers of America. Interviewed on 13 December 1963.
Estrada, Jose, Assistant to the Program Director, Department of Education, American Institute for Free Labor Development. Interviewed on 16 December 1963.
McLellan, Andrew C . , International Affairs Director, AFL/CIO, Interviewed on 10 December 1963.
Steinbach, Arnold, Special Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor. Interviewed on 4 December 1963. II. SECONDARY SOURCES
A. BOOKS
Beals, Car let on, Latin America: World in Revolution. Abelard-Schuman, London, New York, Toronto, 1963.
Benson, Jesse Guy, Report on Venezuelan Tax. Labor. Corporation Law. Matthew Bender and Co., Inc., Albany, New York, 1958.
Considine, John J., M.M. , New Horizons in Latin America. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1958.
Considine, John J., M.M. , The Missionary's Role in Socio-Economic Betterment. Newman Press, 1960.
Gordon, Lincoln, A New Deal for Latin America; The Alliance for Progress. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963.
Hanke, Lewis, South America. Modern Latin America: The Alliance for Progress. Volume II. D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1959.
Kirchhoff, Herbert, Venezuela. Buenos Aires, Kraft, 1956.
Lieuwen, Edwin, Petroleum in Venezuela: A History. Berkeley, California University Press, 1954. (University of California Publications in History, xlvi.)
Lieuwen, Edwin, Venezuela. Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto, 1961. (Published under the auspices of the Royal Institute of Inter national Affairs.)
Luzardo, Rodolfo, Venezuela; Business and Finances. Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1957.
Poblete Troncoso, Mbises and Burnett, Ben G., The Rise of the Latin American Labor Movement. Bookman Associates, New York, 1960.
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B . PUBLICATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT, LEARNED SOCIETIES , AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
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D. THESES
Follows, John W ., Antecedents of the International Labor Organization, an abstract of a thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, June 12, 1933. 118. E. NEWSPAPERS
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Hightower, John M . , "Venezuela Pushes Hard," Christian Science Monitor. 6 November 1963.
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APPENDIX
Glossary 122. GLOSSARY
ACAT Continental Association of American Workers
ACB Bolivarian Civic Group
ACFE Cultural Education Association
AD Accion Democratica
AFL American Federation of Labor
AID Agency for International Development
AIFLD American Institute for Free Labor Development
ANDE National Association of Employees
AVP Venezuelan Association of Journalists
CEOSL Confederation of Free Trade Union Workers of Ecuador
CESDAL Committee of Labor Exiles of Latin America
CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations
CISC Social Christian International Confederation
CIT International Confederation of Workers
CLASC Latin American Confederation of Christian Trade Unions
CNT National Confederation of Workers
OOC Circulo de Caracas
CODESA Committee of Autonomous Unions
COFETROV Committee for the Federation of Organized Workers of Venezuela
COPEI Independent Committee for Political and Electoral Organization
CROM Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers
CSLA Trade Union Confederation of Latin America
CSU Confederation of Trade Unions of Uruguay
CSUN National Committee on Trade Union Unity
CTAL Latin American Confederation of Workers 123,
CTM Confederation of Mexican Workers
CTV Venezuelan Confederation of Workers
CUNA Credit Union National Association
CUSIC Central Committee of Christian Trade Unionists
FALN Armed Forces of National Liberation
FAW See lUF
FCV Federation of Venezuelan Campesinos (Rural Workers)
FEDECAM Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry
FEDEPETROL Federation of Petroleum Workers of Venezuela
FEI Independent Electoral Front
FENADE Federation of Employees of Venezuela
FETIG Federation of Workers of Graphic Arts
FTC Christian Social Workers Front
FUNDASC Fraternal Union of Directors of Social Catholic Action
ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
IDE International Development Bank
IFCCTE International Federation of Commercial, Clerical and Technical Workers
IFCTÜ International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (CISC)
IFF General Workers Union
IFPAAW International Federation of Plantation and Allied Agricul tural Workers
IFPW International Federation of Petroleum Workers
IFTU International Federation of Trade Unions
IIS Institute for International Solidarity
ILÛ International Labor Organization
IMF International Metalworkers Federation 124,
INCE Institute of Co-operative Education
INES National Institute of Trade Union Studies
ITF International Transport Workers Federation
ITGWF International Textile and Garment Workers Union
ITS International Trade Secretariates)
lUF International Federation of Food, Drink and Tobacco Workers (also called FAW)
IVSS Venezuelan Institute of Social Security
MIF Miners' International Federation
MIR Movement of the Revolutionary Left
OAS Organization of American States
ORIT Regional Organization of Inter-American Workers
ORVE Venezuelan Organization
PAFL Pan American Federation of Labor
PCU Unitarian Communist Party
PCV Communist Party of Venezuela
PDN Democratic National Party
PSI Public Services International
PTTI Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International
UMW United Mine Workers of America
UNECOSOC United Nations Economic and Social Council
UP Popular Union
UPM Patriotic Military Union
URD Republican Democratic Union
VDC Venezuelan Development Corporation
WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions 125.
INTERNATIONAL LABOR ACTIVITIES IN VENEZUELA
ABSTRACT
Venezuelan labor has been ably assisted since 1945, and especially since 1958, by the following international labor organizations: The Inter national Labor Organization, the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions, the Inter-American Regional Organization, nine International Trade
Secretariats, the international Christian Democratic groups, as well as by U. S. public and private labor interests, including the Agency for
International Development and the American Institute for Free Labor Develop ment. Their activities in technical and social assistance in the fields of labor education, organization, housing and credit unions have been con siderable and are particularized. These efforts have contributed to streng thening democratic labor in Venezuela, and negating Communist influence in the trade union movement. The continuation of these international labor
activities is therefore important to further vitalization of free labor in
Venezuela.