The Sidernac organization asks the Citizen Power for the restitution of labor rights, the reinstatement of workers not required or unjustifiably dismissed and the cessation of union persecution.
Text: Francesca Diaz / Caroní Mail
The Public Ministry (MP) of Puerto Ordaz admitted a complaint for violation of human and labor rights, filed by the Union of Workers of the National Steel Industry (Sidernac).
This document consigned before the Citizen Power body compiles a series of violations of labor rights, specifically disrespect for labor immobility, collective bargaining, the right to work and freedom of association.
Sidernac’s general secretary, Alejandro Álvarez, explained in an interview with Caroní Mail that “it is a broad complaint supported by documentation from the years 2017 and 2018, explained in detail and in accordance with the Law of Administrative Procedures.”
The complaint has six sections in which it extends overlapping articles of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with situations that are experienced within the Casima Plant Steel Complex, alleging that the company authorities have violated the rights of workers, affecting their salaries. , freedoms and working conditions permanently.
Memo 2792
The workers argue in the sections referring to wages and collective contracts, that through memorandum 2792 published by the Ministry of the Social Process of Labor in 2018, the labor benefits and social security of all the workers of the CVG holding were undermined.
In this sense, memorandum 2792 defends the protection of the source of work, alleging that public companies can suspend the payment of benefits if they consider that these are very “onerous” or cannot afford them. The text gave license to the CVG to suspend benefits and economic commitments that it had through collective bargaining with its employees.
Alejandro Álvarez, Sidernac’s general secretary, explained in an interview with Correo del Caroní that “it is a broad complaint supported by documentation from the years 2017 and 2018, explained in detail and in accordance with the Law of Administrative Procedures”
“The implementation of these guidelines as a State policy resulted in unjustified dismissals, deterioration in our working conditions, violation of our collective contracting and collective benefit agreement minutes, elimination of our salary calculation sheet, elimination of the methods and formulas of traditional calculation, elimination of the delivery of the salary payment receipt and attacks against our union institution”, the document establishes.
The complaint argues the illegality of the deterioration in working conditions, since the law defends the progressivity of the worker’s rights, therefore, this memorandum transgresses national and international labor regulations.
This situation was verified by the International Labor Organization in its Commission of Inquiry carried out in 2018.
*Read also: Workers at the Casima Plant in Bolívar denounce layoffs while in dialogue with the CVG
20 unjustified dismissals: violation of labor immobility
Regarding labor immobility, this has been renewed in the country since the year 2000, preventing workers from being fired if it is not under a precautionary measure of dismissal that must be supported by a justified cause, which are established in the Organic Law Labor, Workers and Workers (Lottt).
However, the workers denounce that there were at least 20 unjustified and illegal dismissals between 2019 and 2021, in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic.
Not required: violation of the right to work
“This policy consists of communicating to the worker verbally (they refuse to do so in writing) that the functions that they usually perform in their work entity, as established in their contracts, are no longer necessary for the operational continuity of the company. and, therefore, they are non-required workers, sending them home and prohibiting them from entering their work entity. Bringing as a consequence a decrease in their income of at least 70%”, this is how the complaint filed in the Public Ministry describes the reality of the non-required employees.
from 2021 Caroní Mail has received multiple complaints about this figure that arose in the context of the pandemic, however, despite the lifting of the confinement there are still workers outside their jobs.
The document cites the results of the ILO report in Venezuela, which found that “the action of non-government worker organizations is harassed and undermined.”
In this sense, the complaint qualifies this situation as a violation of the right to work contained in national regulations and international labor agreements.
In turn, Sidernac denounces that this figure is used to threaten and, if necessary, remove workers from the plant who claim poor working conditions, especially insecurity in work areas.
In this regard, last year Caroní Mail He counted a dozen work accidents in the basic companies of Guyana, added to this, Ferrominera Orinoco was the scene where he died crushed by the wheels of a wagon. The worker Julio Barroso.
Violations of trade union freedom: attacks against Sidernac
The document cites the results of the ILO report in Venezuela, which found that “the action of workers’ organizations not affiliated with the government is harassed and undermined.”
In this sense, Sidernac alleges that the organization has been the victim of constant attacks, preventing the regular action of the union and leaving its authorities out of their work.
“Since March 2022, the company has prohibited Sidernac union leaders from entering the work entity, who filed a claim for anti-union practice in the Labor Inspectorate,” says the complaint, which compiles the different complaints that has made the organization in different state institutions.
Due to this, the complainants classify the Inspectorate as “inefficient”, a reality that has been denounced on repeated occasions by other groups of workers, who claim to have made more than 40 complaints in the institution and have not received responses.
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