University Workers Demand Compliance with Venezuela's New Labor Law

By CORREO DEL ORINOCO INTERNATIONAL

We reprint this report as we follow the implimentation of Venezuela`s new labour law, a story we first covered in May.

The Andean city of Merida has been rocked over the past week by a number of worker-led protests as sub-contracted employees from the University of the Andes (ULA) demanded that they be made permanent staff in compliance with Venezuela’s new labor law.

The protests began last week and have focused on the ULA’s conservative administration, headed by Rector Mario Bonucci, who has refused to incorporate more than 1,400 subcontracted employees into full-time positions.

“We’re in the streets demanding permanent positions and respect of the labor law.  We are the ones affected and we won’t accept more ridicule from the university authorities”, said Mario Chacon, General Secretary of the workers’ union Soula.

Merida, a city of approximately  300,000  residents,  is  dominated both socially and economically by the public university - the second largest in Venezuela with more than 40,000 enrolled students.

Venezuela’s new labour law “first in transition to socialism”

Pedro Conceicao,
People's World

In what Venezuela’s government described as the “first law in the transition to socialism,” President Hugo Chávez has signed into law new comprehensive labour legislation. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marched through the streets of Caracas on May 1, International Workers’ Day, to commemorate the signing of the historic document.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marched through the streets of Caracas.
“The triumph of the people, of the workers, has never come about without a long process of resistance, of struggle, suffering even. This law, which I will have the honour of signing ... is the product of a long process of struggle,” said President Chávez.

The legislation reduces the work week to 40 hours and seeks to abolish private sub-contracted labour in the country, which the state views as an exploitative practice and relic of neo-liberal policies of the 1990s.