An exile accused of treason will compete against an ally of President Hugo Chavez for the right to lead Venezuela's labor movement at the UN' annual labor conference starting on Tuesday.
Carlos Ortega, head of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation, fled to Costa Rica after leading a two-month general strike that failed to oust Chavez earlier this year.
Ortega squares off against Orlando Chirinos, leader of the government-supported National Workers Union, at the International Labor Organization assembly in Geneva. The gathering runs through June 19.
It's the first time since Venezuela became a democracy in 1958 that the 65-year-old workers confederation, or CTV, won't lead Venezuela's official labor delegation.
Citing the strike and alleged fraud in CTV elections in 2001, Chavez's government tapped the newly formed Workers Union, or UNT, to represent Venezuelan unions.
Ortega hopes the ILO will withhold recognition of Chirinos' group, which it sees as another move by Chavez to assert his leftist government's control over Venezuelan society.
"The government is risking having the UNT expelled from the ILO meeting," said CTV leader Froilan Barrios.
ILO officials were not immediately available for comment Friday.
At stake is the welfare of millions of workers and retirees who are owed millions of dollars in back pay and pensions. Venezuela's minimum wage is 247,600 bolivars (US$155). It costs about 400,000 bolivars (US$250) each month to feed a family of four.
From exile, the burly Ortega remains a hero to many who accuse Chavez of imposing an authoritarian regime and bankrupting the economy.
As former head of Venezuela's largest oil workers union, Ortega handed Chavez his first defeat by leading a successful oil strike for higher pay in 2000.
Later that year, Chavez won a referendum to force the CTV to hold internal elections -- elections bitterly opposed by the ILO as government interference in private union affairs. Ortega handily beat Chavez's candidate; Chavez accused Ortega of electoral fraud.
Last year, Ortega led a general strike that snowballed into a two-day coup in April. He tried again in December and repeatedly predicted Chavez would resign.
Venezuelans paid dearly for the strike. Organized with Venezuela's largest business association, it momentarily paralyzed the world's No. 5 oil exporter. It cost Venezuela US$7.5 billion and contributed to a 29 percent economic contraction in the first quarter this year. Chavez fired more than 18,000 strikers from the state-owned oil monopoly.
Chavez ordered Ortega's arrest on treason charges, which can carry 26-year prison terms. Ortega fled.
Critics accused the CTV of again putting politics above worker rights -- a reputation it gained over decades of cronyism before Chavez's 1998 election. Workers were charged by union bosses to get jobs while leaders lived privileged lives.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS