Venezuela: Revolution in the Electrical Industry

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In February this year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared a national state of emergency in the electrical sector. The drastic situation facing this sector, which has led to a series of rationing programs across the country, is the result of various factors.

Prior to Chavez's election in 1998, previous neoliberal governments had neglected the electricity sector in order to pave the way for its privatization. In the early 1990s, pro-capitalist governments succeeded in privatizing the electricity companies that serviced Caracas and the northeastern island state of Nueva Esparta. But, in 1999, a bill to privatize a further chunk of the 14 state-owned electricity companies was halted just in time, when Chavez came to power.

Since then, the government has moved to renationalize those companies that were privatized and has unified them into one single company, Corpoelec.......

........."President Chavez hopes workers will become key actors providing Venezuela with a trustworthy, lasting, and permanent electrical system for the people, through the construction of socialist companies, with a decisive and active participation of the workers," informed Jaua.

A series of workers' assemblies and meetings were organized across the country this week, in order to collect proposals from the workers regarding structural changes to the company, as well as ideas for tackling the current emergency. These proposals will be complied and categorized before being discussed in roundtables when hundreds of workers from across the country gather in Caracas between April 5-7, and final proposals are presented to Chavez in a public event. Navas described the proposals to move toward worker control as a "historic event."

FETRAELEC has long been campaigning for worker participation as a solution to the problems in the electrical sector, and recently signed a new contract that not only equalizes pay and conditions across the country as a step towards further unifying the sector, but also includes a clause relating to worker participation in management."


http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5228

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My comment:

They've had three energy ministers in one year. Last week they asked all of the Corpoelec company managers to turn in their resignation letters. Today, as far as I can tell, there are 10 meters of water left in the Guri reservoir - that's about 10 weeks until it runs out if it doesn't rain.

They can't get new powerplants build on time, their proposed schedules are unachiavable, and they are installing the wrong kind of plants, which will burn liquid fuel because we have a natural gas shortage as well.

And now they are pointing fingers, as if the problem was lack of worker participation. They have been in power for 10 years, what's the matter, it took them this long to figure out population was increasing and there were illegal miners in the Caroni river destroying the forest, which meant when a dry spell came the water supply would run out? These guys think they can cover up their ineptitude? Who is dumb enough to believe this garbage?