Venezuela: 20% Minimum Salary Raise, Withdrawal from World Bank and IMF

[Joanne98]

Caracas, May 1, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced yesterday that the country’s minimum wage would be raised by 20%, to $286 per month, and that Venezuela would withdraw its membership from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Also, Chavez said that by 2010 the Venezuelan work week will be lowered from 44 to 36 hours.

Chavez made the announcements yesterday evening, during a celebration on the evening before International Workers’ Day, May 1st.


“This is one of the highest minimum wages in all of Latin America,” said Chavez. “In many countries the minimum wage does not reach $100 today, we are at nearly $300 with the minimum salary.”

Opposition union leader, Manuel Cova, the General Secretary of the union federation CTV, said the wage increase was “insufficient” because it does not allow workers to afford to purchase the basic food basket, as calculated by the National Statistics Institute. Cova said what is needed instead is a both a greater increase and a general wage increase for all workers.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2286

Ever notice how "union leaders" are always on the side of capitalists during socialist revolutions?

[Joanne98]

1. Venezuela seizes last private oil fields

President Hugo Chávez on Tuesday celebrated the “nationalisation” of Venezuela’s last foreign-controlled oilfields, situated in the Orinoco Belt, which could contain the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Mr Chávez has hailed the move as the end of the exploitation of Venezuela’s resources by multinational corporations, although the change, in effect, means only that the state will receive majority control of four heavy oil projects, reducing the stakes of ConocoPhilips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total, BP and Statoil, which are worth more than $15bn (£7.5bn, €11bn).

“Welcome to the new PDVSA,” Rafael Ramírez, Venezuela’s energy minister in charge of the state oil company, said to a crowd of workers. The workers had substituted their traditional blue helmets for red ones – the colour favoured by Mr Chávez’s followers – highlighting the increasing politicisation of the company.

Television footage also showed the oil workers raising the flags of Venezuela and PDVSA over a refinery and the four drilling fields.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4645a60a-f825-11db-baa1-000b5df10621.html