Posted on 06/29/2003 4:22:17 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Janette De Freitas has a résumé that would make many petroleum professionals envious -- master's degrees in chemical engineering and business administration, as well as 20 years of experience in the field.
But after nearly climbing to the rank of company executive, De Freitas was fired by Venezuela's state oil company for joining a strike last December. She now makes a living selling jewelry and the remains of her business wardrobe on the streets of Caracas.
"I don't regret joining the strike, and I would do it again in a heartbeat," De Freitas, 46, says. "But it's hard to wake up and find yourself struggling to make it."
De Freitas is one of more than 18,000 employees of Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, who were fired early this year for joining an opposition strike meant to force the resignation of President Hugo Chavez.
The work stoppage nearly paralyzed Venezuela's oil production for two months and cost the country an estimated $6 billion. Most striking workers had expected the military to force Chavez from office, but the president weathered the strike, regained control of the oil industry and sacked thousands of workers.
Once blessed with some of the most respected jobs in the country, many former PDVSA workers are now doing just about anything to pay their bills. Many are active in the political opposition, which helps take their minds off their precarious financial situations.
Earlier this month, a court ruled that the government had illegally fired the workers. But the ruling stopped short of ordering the oil company to rehire them, something that government officials said they will not allow.
Former PDVSA workers hailed the court ruling, but few seem to think they will ever work for the oil company again. Some say they don't want to.
"I wouldn't go back to work for this government, even if they called to offer me a job," De Freitas says.
Many executives from the company's upper echelons are now living off their savings while dedicating themselves to the opposition's push for a referendum on Chavez's rule, an effort that, they hope, will push him from office by the end of the year.
"Right now I'm unemployed, but I'm conspiring full time," jokes former PDVSA production manager Ignacio Layrisse, who collaborates with a group of former oil workers.
Many of PDVSA's fired mid-level managers and engineers now work odd jobs.
Jose Enrique Salazar, a former materials engineer, sells wooden picture frames in Caracas' street markets. Santiago Zerpa, an accountant employed by the oil company for 22 years, earns money by waiting in long vehicle registration lines for people who don't want do it themselves.
"I feel good about what I'm doing," says Zerpa, who also is involved with the opposition. "Fighting against this government keeps me going."
Many former PDVSA employees say they share Zerpa's spirit of resistance. Still, losing the prestige and security the oil company provided has taken its toll, many quietly acknowledge.
Friends and neighbors, these workers say, offered support when they were first fired, but generosity has waned. According to local newspaper reports, four sacked executives have committed suicide in recent months.
Observers say the conflict between Chavez and PDVSA managers was almost inevitable. Chavez, a former army paratrooper elected in 1998 on an anti-poverty, anti-corruption platform, never hid his dislike for executives of the state oil giant.
PDVSA managers wanted an integrated company that made its own planning and investment decisions. Chavez believed PDVSA should carry out directives of the Energy and Mines Ministry. His insistence on restricting private investment angered oil company executives, who wanted to increase production.
Tensions came to a head in April 2002, when the managers staged a protest against Chavez, starting a chain of events that led to a two-day military coup. After returning to office, the president took steps to repair relations with PDVSA executives, then fired them and others for joining the December 2002 general strike. The strike included a coalition of anti-Chavez labor unions and business organizations but would have died quickly without the participation of PDVSA employees.
Former company executives say the dismissal of almost half of Venezuela's oil workers was an enormous waste of human capital. The firings, they say, cost the country more than 280,000 years of worker experience.
The government, however, insists that the company needed to lay off excess personnel after merging its three subsidiaries in 1997, a point acknowledged even by some government critics.
Officials also say that PDVSA workers who were fired put politics before professional obligations, leaving little ground for them to complain.
Some workers counter, however, that they never wanted to join the strike and that managers forced them to walk out. Others say they could not report to their jobs, because their workplaces were shut down.
Since their firings, the former oil workers have developed solidarity networks, helping each other make ends meet by raising funds from private donors and negotiating low group health insurance rates. Others have developed professional associations in hopes of finding work outside Venezuela.
"I think I did the right thing," says Alfredo Blanco, a former PDVSA business analyst who was fired for participating in the strike. "And I'm going to keep fighting. But I can't say it has been easy."
Why is that?
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