Its red shirts fading, Venezuela's oil giant embraces pragmatism
A subtle change in office attire may be the most telling symbol of a quiet revolution taking place inside Venezuela's troubled economic engine, giant oil firm PDVSA.
For years, PDVSA employees were encouraged to wear red shirts in support of late President Hugo Chavez's socialist movement. Rafael Ramirez, the former oil czar famously vowed the state-owned firm would be "redder than red" and sent workers to state rallies.
Over the past few months, however, the company's new management - led by president Eulogio del Pino, a low-profile Stanford-educated engineer - has eased up on revolutionary garb and attendance at militant gatherings, according to sources within and outside the company.
New posters inside its Caracas headquarters request employees don normal office wear, visitors say, a telltale sign of what could be the most sweeping changes in over a decade at a firm that controls the world's largest crude reserves and generated some $78 billion in exports in 2013 - 96 percent of Venezuela's hard currency revenue.
http://news.yahoo.com/red-shirts-fading-venezuelas-oil-giant-embraces-pragmatism-050308176.html
