Local union leaders share insight from trip

Workers - The eight detail harsh contrasts between Venezuela and Colombia from their visit

Amid $5 rice-and-bean plates and copies of Venezuela's Bolivarian Constitution, eight local labor leaders told a packed North Portland union hall why Venezuela changed their lives and Colombia broke their hearts.

"There's a stark difference between Venezuela and Colombia," said Lorene Scheer, a Teamster organizer who saw a Venezuela where uneducated mothers are getting first chances and a Colombia where teachers are getting killed.

"I met an uneducated Caracas mother of three whose children never would have had a chance under the old system," she told the crowd of about 120 recently at United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 247. "Now two of the three are in university, and she's learned to read."

The eight labor leaders -- who also included two longshoremen, a
carpenter, a paper millworker, a restaurant worker, an educator and a
state bureaucrat -- returned last month from an 11-day trip sponsored
by the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, said Daniel
Denvir, the nonprofit's coordinator and sole employee. Since 1979, the
group has worked to educate and mobilize students, union members and
community activists around struggles for human rights and economic
justice.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez's recently re-elected left-wing
government has survived a coup, a general strike and a recall effort
since coming to power in 1999, while extending the presence of its
"Bolivarian Revolution" into many corners of life. The term refers to
Simon Bolivar, who helped several Latin American countries win
independence from Spain in the 19th century.

In Colombia, President Alviro Uribe's rightist government has had
individual members linked to paramilitary death squads, one of which --
the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia or AUC -- controls impoverished
Bogota neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, the country's two left-wing revolutionary movements "are not
so politically oriented anymore," said May Wallace, a Parkrose High
School art teacher and a member of the Oregon Education Association.
"They're more into narco-trafficking and protecting their turf."

She called Colombia "the most dangerous place in the world to be a
teacher or a trade unionist" because members of those groups are
singled out by both sides, accused of propagandizing for one or the
other. Wallace said dozens of teachers and unionists were killed last
year.

In Venezuela, Denvir said, "We met farmworkers, youth groups, women's
groups, media unions. We even went to the main plaza where the
upper-class opposition gathers."

The nation's 1,200 unions are themselves split over Chavez, noted
Steven Toff of the Association of Portland Pulp and Paper Workers. The
mainstream CTV (Confederacion de Trabajadores de Venezuela) supported
what Toff called the "faux general strike" of December 2002, when a new
union loyal to Chavez, the UNT (Union Nacional de Trabajadores) arose,
and Chavez nationalized the oil industry.

Rosalie Pedroza praised Chavez for raising oil prices after
nationalizing the industry, Venezuela's biggest. "Unlike private
companies, Venezuela's oil profits go into social services," she said.

Daniel Bonham of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 1065, sees
the Bolivarian Revolution as "an extension of the great American
experiment."

The constitution, often displayed in whole or part throughout
Venezuela, enshrines multiculturalism, workers' rights (including a
44-hour work week) and universal education. "It's time to connect with
these people," he said.

The Portland Central America Solidarity Committee survives on
contributions, grants and fundraising events, said board member
Marianne Hall. This trip, which cost about $20,000, was partly
supported by several of the unions represented.

Hall said a trip years ago to El Salvador, one of the group's missions,
changed her life. "I've been a 20-hour-a-week activist since I came
back."

Denvir said he will never forget one image from this trip, a meeting
with Afro-Colombian refugees displaced from ancestral land on the
Atlantic Coast by both sides and now living Ciudad Juarez, a Bogota
slum controlled by AUC, the right-wing paramilitary group. "They will
put up decrees saying a anyone caught wearing braids (an Afro-Colombian
style) on certain days will be shot.

"I've been in many places in Latin America, but I've never seen this
kind of naked repression," he said.


©2007The Oregonian