People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 02
January 13, 2013
|
Vol. XXXVII
No. 02 January 13, 2013 |
Swadesh
Dev
Roye THIS time there
was an added attraction for the
participants to the world congress of energy workers: The report of the
secretariat of Trade Unions
International (Energy) [TUI-(E)] to the congress started
with greetings to the
people of Venezuela: “First of all we extend our warm
fraternal greetings to
the people of Venezuela for voting Comrade Hugo Chavez
again to the presidency
of Venezuela, the great country of people’s successful
struggle against
imperialist machinations and the disastrous doctrine of
neo-liberalism. At the
same time we also congratulate Comrade Chavez for his
grand success in
successively winning the confidence of the toiling
people of The report
continued to say, “The victory of Chavez in
the elections is not merely over his conservative
‘united’ opposition candidate
but it is a victory of alternative path of people
oriented economic development
policies and rejection of finance capital driven
neo-liberalism.” PROFILE OF
PARTICIPANTS, THE INAUGURAL
SESSION The congress took
place on November 29-30, 2012 and
was hosted jointly by the Petroleum and the Electricity
Workers’ Federations of
Venezuela at In addition to the
delegates, a large number of energy
sector workers of The
presidential speech dealt
at length the hegemonic design of imperialism led by the
Two
important points
underlined in this regard were as below: (1)
Liberating the people
of the Arab world from the direct or indirect clutches
of the imperialist
forces and installation of genuine popular rule of
democracy in the African and
(2)
In this regard the
specific experience of the struggle of the people of
Latin America confirms
that anti-imperialist struggles under the leadership of
working class wedded to
the doctrine of class struggle
is the only way the
Anglo-American imperialist powers can be driven out of
the Arab region. The
president noted, “Our TUI
(Energy) will have to play role in articulating
before the people this political-organisational point
and mobilising the
working class in this struggle. Anti-imperialist
struggle, energy factor and
movement for democracy in Arab world are certainly
correlated.” COMPEHENSIVE POLITICAL ORGANISATIONAL REPORT A
comprehensive
political organisational report was
presented to the congress on behalf of the TUI (Energy)
secretariat. On crude
oil and natural gas, the report dealt with the
established reserve and
production scenarios as also with the profile of
countries in terms of consumption,
export and import. The actual game behind the US
aggression in regard to the oil
and natural gas rich countries was thus captured in the
report, “In the matter
of consumption, United States is way ahead of the rest
of the nation states. A
statement showing the top
30 crude oil producing countries, incorporated in the
report, provided
important data depicting the new emerging world
geopolitics of crude oil situation.
A recent related development noted in the report is that
according to latest
OPEC data, at the beginning of 2011 highest proved oil
reserves including
non-conventional oil deposits are in Emergence
of new players
and new centres of crude oil refining hubs has also been
focused in the report.
“A new strategy has of late emerged under which refining
hubs are established
based on totally imported crude oil and products are
entirely exported. The
game behind such design is exploitation of cheap labour
market of the countries
concerned […] China and Saudi Arabia have come together
to build a gigantic oil
refinery at a reported cost of $8.5 billion jointly by
Chinese oil company –
SINOPEC and Saudi oil giant ARAMCO with former’s share
holding of 37.5 per cent
and latter’s 62.5 per cent to be operational by 2014.
Again THE
VENEZUELAN DEVELOPMENT The
oil industry in “Under the policy
formulated by President Chavez, the
authority of the government in the oil industry of the
country was established
first by reducing the stake of private oil companies
operating in the country.
And ultimately by enacting the Hydrocarbon Act 2006,
full government control
was established in the vast proven oil and gas
reserves in the country. This is
clearly a step switching over from private sector
control to state control.
Incidentally prior to the new arrangement, “ Yet
another welcome
departure from pre-Chavez period and bold steps by
President Chavez was
diversified oil export to a great extent from US to
China, India, Japan and other
nations resulting in what a Venezuelan minister said,
“we are not subject to
the problems of the US and European economies, nor to
the devaluation of the
dollar.” Moreover,
under Apart
from oil and natural
gas the report also contained data based analytical
formulation on the other
segments of energy, i.e., coal mines, electric power
subdivided into thermal power,
nuclear power, hydropower and other renewable energy. CHALLENGES
BEFORE ENERGY
WORKERS In this
regard, the secretariat report noted that
the challenges before the trade union movement in the
energy sector have
features that are common to the energy sector as a whole
as well as various segment
specific features. The major sources of energy --- oil
and natural gas, coal
and electricity --- are afflicted with ills of different
dimensions. While the
oil and natural gas sector is the victim of imperialist
hegemonic design, the
coal sector has almost been grabbed by private giant
MNCs, and the electricity (generation,
transmission and distribution) has reached to the height
of anarchy due to
privatisation, restructuring and total departure from
people orientation to
private profit orientation. The
consequence of the disastrous privatisation of coalmines
and that too in the
major countries of established reserves with dangerous
degree of monopolistic
concentration is a big challenge before the trade union
movement in this
segment of energy sector. The ‘quick buck’ philosophy of
private monopolies has
created human, environmental and sustainability problems
for the coalmines. The challenges
in the electricity sector are most widespread and
literally global. In the
matter of access and affordability, the situation is
rather deceitful and
worsening. The Common to
entire energy sector is the menacing contractisation of
employment which has
become most exploitative labour practice manifested
internationally. This
atrocious development must be fought with top priority
all over the world. It
is not merely a matter of fighting the exploitation of a
section of workers,
but must be perceived as a huge danger to the trade
union movement itself. This
attack of capital must be understood ideologically and
must be fought as a
class battle. DELIBERATIONS
AND
CONCLUSION A discussion
by delegates followed the presentation of the report; it
was remarkable for
several reasons. Since the delegates were from all the
segments of energy, the
deliberations presented a composite picture of the
overall energy scenario in the
world. The continent specific content of the debate was
the other attention-grabbing
feature. The interventions by delegates from the Latin
American countries were much
stimulating because of their rich experience of the
fight against From the formulation
in the report under the caption “Lesson from the Fight of
Latin American People against US
Imperialism” and from a
summary of the speeches of
the delegates of the continent, the following
substance can be drawn: In
the face of intense neo-liberal exploitation, Latin
American countries have witnessed
vast increase in political mobilisation of the working
class. Under the
pressure of the mass movement, discredited governments
in Under
the pressure of mass
movement; the Delegates
from the Arab region
narrated the sordid state of affairs in the energy
industries plagued by
techno-economic-political domination of private MNCs and
the pathetic plight of
the workers of the industry in the countries under the
regimes subservient to
US imperialist powers. Just as the people of these
countries are denied fundamental
rights, including an unhindered right to elect a
government of their choice, the
working class too is denied of free and unfettered trade
union rights. However,
as the magnitude of multifarious exploitation of workers
is increasing, the
anger of the exploited workers too is heightening and
the dimension of its manifestations
is also widening. Fight to free the Arab countries from
the clutches of
imperialist powers effectively under the leadership of
democratic forces led by
the working class is the task before the toiling people
of the region. A
highlight of the
deliberations at the congress was the increasing
struggles of workers in energy
sector against the onslaught of privatisation and
against attack on rights of
workers. The intensity of the struggles is certainly not
uniform, but they are
certainly continuing and intensifying --- right from the
capitalist outposts and
epic centres of the current capitalist crisis to the
countries of developing
economies pursuing neo-liberal policies. As noted in the
report, “The entire
Europe, the United States of America and the countries
of Asia and Africa are
reverberating with Strikes and militant street
demonstrations as well as
different other forms of struggles participated by
millions and millions of
worker to protest against brazen attack on rights and
livelihood of toiling
masses by the governments of the respective countries
under the dictates of
imperialist agencies in their pursuit to protect the
profit of the crisis
ridden capitalist class.” THE TASKS AHEAD The
political-organisational
tasks adopted by the congress are as below: (a) To conduct continuous worldwide
agitations and propaganda against the
hegemonic onslaught of imperialist powers centring round
the energy sector. (b)
To expose and defeat
the machinations of different vested interests in regard
to crude oil pricing. (c)
To strongly oppose contractisation
and casualisation of employment and outsourcing of jobs;
to organise all
categories of non-regular workers into trade unions. (d)
To establish
continent-wise regional centres and also unleash
segment-wise activities, while
strengthening the central functioning of the TUI
(Energy), in accordance with
the democratic principles of organisation. The
congress unanimously
elected a new secretariat with Martin Esparza of
