Chavez nationalises Venepal under workers' control "We want to liberate ourselves from capitalism" By Jorge Martin
On the morning of January 19th, in the Ayacucho room of the Presidential Palace in Caracas, and with the presence of Venepal workers and trade union leaders, Chavez signed decree number 3438 which expropriates Venepal. From now on it will be co-managed by the workers and the state.
This is a very important victory for the workers of Venepal but more than that it is a massive step forward for the Bolivarian revolution.
Venepal is one of the main producers of paper and cardboard in Venezuela and its plant is located in Morón, in the industrial state of Carabobo. At one point it employed a total of 1,600 workers, controlled 40% of the national market and was one of the main Latin American producers in this sector. But the company's management allowed the paper mill to slowly lose market shares and revenues. In April 2002, at the time of the short lived military coup against Chávez, some of its main shareholders were present at the swearing in ceremony for the new, illegitimate, "president" Pedro Carmona. During the bosses' lockout against the Chávez government in December 2002-January 2003 the workers resisted attempts by the employers to paralyse the plant.
In July 2003, the owners declared bankruptcy and the workers responded by occupying the plant and starting to run production under workers' control. Rowan Jimenez, a trade union activist and member of the action committee, explained how during the occupation, "the workers organised production, broke all productivity records and reduced unproductive waste to a level never seen before", (El Topo Obrero interview, 16/09/04). After a 77-day long struggle an uneasy truce was reached. But that was not to last. On September 7th of last year, the company again ceased operations and the workers' struggle started again.
http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/venepal_nationalised.htm