Chavez has called for the setting up of PSUV branches in the workplaces, known in Venezuela as “patrullas obreras” (workers’ patrols). At the massive SIDOR steelworks in Ciudad Guayana this has been taken up and already over 500 workers have signed up, with over 20 branches formed that will soon become 50. Here we publish an interview with one of the PSUV organisers at the plant.

The harassment of the multinational Mitsubishi Motor Company (MMC) automotive workers continues. While the plant was reopened on Monday, September 21, MMC in Barcelona (Anzoategui) notified the workers of the dismissal of 11 SINGETRAM union leaders. In this interview, Félix Martínez, secretary general of the trade union SINGETRAM, explains the reasons for this unprecedented harassment against workers of Mitsubishi.

On Monday the SINGETRAM workers informed us that the bosses at Mitsubishi had backed off and withdrawn their plans to close the plant. This is an important victory that demonstrates that militancy, firmness on the part of the workers’ leaders and genuine worker participation and democracy are what are required to win.

The coup in Honduras and the stepping up of a US military presence in Colombia are serious warnings to the masses of Latin America. On top of this the present world economic crisis is having an impact on the Venezuelan economy. All this is posing very sharply the need for a turn to a genuine revolutionary programme on the part of the Bolivarian movement.

Mitsubishi, the Japanese multinationa hasl launched a bosses' lockout in an attempt to smash the workers' union. The Venezuelan government must expropriate the company to be run under workers' and community control! The PSUV must mobilize for the nationalization of MMC!

The Second Latin American Meeting of Worker-Recovered Factories took place on June 25-27. Over two hundred workers gathered at the National Library in Caracas to discuss perspectives for the occupied factories movement internationally. Worker representatives were present from all over the world, including Paraguay, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Turkey, Iraq and Canada.