Venezuela: Workers in struggle – Solidarity Needed

Appeal by Frente de Obreros de FOGADE for pension rights.

We urgently appeal to all trade unions and workers’ organisations nationally and internationally to unite in a campaign of solidarity with public sector administration workers involved in struggle at FOGADE.

43 workers are involved in a struggle for just demands regarding pensions which the state authorities have denied us. The authorities at the head of FOGADE are using every possible bureaucratic and administrative manoeuvre to avoid giving in to our just demands and in the process are violating the rights of these workers which are established legally under the Ley Orgánica del Trabajo – an established legal work code. We have sent request after request to the Ministry of Labour denouncing the actions of the management but have not received any response at all.

There are two concrete cases which illustrate what we are fighting for. The first is that of Ervigio Herrera, who is over 60 years old and in quite a weak state of health. She had been recovering from serious health problems for over a year, but had to carry on working and could not get the benefit of a decent pension which she was entitled to as a worker. She was only allowed the minimum state pension, which is very low and with that, she lost all the benefits that all employees of the institution should be entitled to.

The second case is that of Franklin Méndez, who is 57 years of age and has passed the necessary time employed in Public Administration to be entitled to his legal pension rtights. He suffers from hyper-tension. They have denied him this right and argued that in order to obtain it, he must study and obtain a university qualification. But then he was told there were no places for him to study to obtain the necessary qualifications.

FOGADE has a series of contracts with companies which specialise in providing academic services. These include courses on social awareness, social morals and other issues. Yet what type of social awareness is evident in the actions of the management of FOGADE. It is facing two ways, saying one thing and doing another in practice.

These are just examples of the workers involved in a struggle for their just pension rights at FOGADE.

We therefore appeal to all workers internationally to send messages of support to:

[email protected] and [email protected] and [email protected]

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