What is the status of the CTV now?
The CTV still exists, of course as a minority trade union central, much weakened. But I want to explain this little rumour from aporrea.org.net [a Venezuelan left website] and other sources. I don’t have any illusions in the leadership of the CTV. At the point when it supported the 2002/3 strike-sabotage, this leadership ceased to be a workers’ organisation and became a political party executing pro-imperialist policies. But the CTV still exists – why? It organises more than a few workers in the education, health care and technology sectors. We say that the Venezuelan trade union movement is in a deep crisis: a crisis of identity, of unity, of autonomy, of everything. It’s necessary to refound the trade union movement, to give it a programme that’s revolutionary, socialist, based on class independence and self-determination, with a clear position on the foreign debt (because this country under the Chávez government pays the debt better than under previous ones). This is the debate we w
