The role of trade unions in say nothing of the lack of foreign currency, which affects raw materials purchases, and energy problems. Somethe Sandinista revolution times machinery has to be left idle for days.
Generally, a worker's wage includes a fixed rate and productivity bonuses, the latter designed to encourage higher productivity. But because of the material state of their factories, workers are often unable to do their
THE FOLLOWING round-table discussion among trade unions, from which we are publishing excerpts, was organized in June 1986 by the Nicaraguan daily Barricada. This newspaper of the Sandinista
National Liberation/
Front (FSLN) published the most important passages. The paper invited all the union confederations in Nicaragua, eight in number, along with Carlos Gallo, the Managua region FLN leader in charge of labor questions. For various reasons, three confederations - the ATC, the CTN and CTN-I - did not take part.
The participating organizations were the CGT-I, the CAUS, the CST, the CUS and FO. [See box on page 15.]
MARIA MERRI
The discussion among the trade sharp, unionists, which was rather pointed up one of the thoriest aspects of transitional society the role of unions in the post-revolutionary period. In a more general way, it posed the question of the role of the working class in such a period, especially in a country where constitutes a small minority. (1)
Of all the unions represented.
only the CGT-I and the CAUS existed before the revolution. (2)
• These traditional organizations of the workers movement were thrown into crisis by the victory of the FSLN.
The result was that a part of their cadres went over to the CST. All the other confederations, in particular the CST, the largest of them, were established after July 19, 1979.
Owing to the Somoza dictatorship's previous repression, mass trade unions took form at the same time as the new regime. Concretely this meant that almost overnight the
CST found itself to be the main trade-union organization in the country. Lacking tradition, experience, and sufficient cadres, the CST had to take up the problems of the transition.
The accelerating decline in the economic situation has hit the workers of the productive sector hardest, in particular in Managua. They have been caught in the gap between wages and prices that opened up in 1984-1985.
A layer of wage workers have left their jobs to swell the ranks of those involved in the "informal economy".
This included many technicians and skilled workers, who suffered proportionally more from the general drop in the standard of living.
Moreover, until now the System of Norms and Organization of Work and Wages (SNOWW), which defines skills and the payment for them, has been particularly unfavorable such workers. It was not unusual to engineers opening business simply because they could make more money that way. suffered chronic unemployment, and workers - especially skilled workers - are in short supply. In industries such as construction, where demand is very strong, there is a major process of de-proletarianization. A lot workers go into business for themselves because they know that they can get much better payment for their labor in the contracts they make with the state, in particular in the area of defence, than accorded them by the SNOWW.
Labour productivity has dropped catastrophically. There are political reasons for this: under the Somozista dictatorship, as under any capitalist
The workers went to work because they were compelled to do example the threatened those who refused to work for starvation wages. But most of all, poverty and unemployment were the fundamental mechanisms for forcing people to work." (3) This means of regulating capitalist profitability was undermined by the victory of the
While the imperialist economic boycott has made its effects felt in all sectors of the Nicaraguan economy, it has wreaked havoc in industry, job and - therefore to top #the production norms and raise their salaries. This situation cannot fail to create tensions, which can lead to conflicts and strikes. The difficulties are made worse because workers get the impression that a lot is being asked of them in the name of their revolutionary consciousness, others are enjoying a distinctly more privileged situation. They do not fail to feel a certain resentment at seeing the material advantage enjoyed by some technicians for example, whose convictions are a good deal more lukewarm.
Facing a brain-drain abroad or into the informal or private sectors, very frequently the state and the nationalized agencies (the Area of People's Property) try to keep skilled personnel in their jobs - with mixed success - by arguments that have nothing to do with ideology. The inticements include a car, housing and wages often raised above the level fixed by the SNOWW by means of various procedures. Higher wages not the main demand
However, higher wages are not even the workers' main demand. Of course, in view of the rapid drop in buying power, readjustment is only just and is seen to be so. Facing galloping inflation, the workers greet wage increases of 100 or 50 per cent (as in January and March 1986) with relief, but also with a lot of scepticism. The question on their minds is how much will prices go up tomorrow?
1. The total number of industrial workers in Nicaragua is estimated at 100,000 people, including the workers in the sugar complexes. Nicaragua has about 3 million inhabitants.
2. The ATC was also formed before the revolution, in 1975 from the movement of the agricultural workers for land and better working conditions. It has gone much further than the CST in thinking about the role of unions in a transitional society.
3. Comandante Jaime Wheelock minister of agricultural development agrarian reform (MIDINRA). 'Barricada", June 2, 1986.
13
International Viewpoint 29 September 1986
What the workers want more than anything is to be able to have a voice in the running of the plants. That is the main question - a real voice for the workers and workers' management. And this is also the only way to confront and solve some of the problems in industry.
The workers argue that they are best placed to know what happens in detail in the production process. They point to the gains made by the innovators' movement and its exemplary value. Such workers, with practically nothing to work with, have been able to cushion the effects of the blockade by improvising spare parts, repairing machines that would be junked anywhere else, adjusting production to the needs of defence, through which workers are supposed to be able to participate in decision-making. But the workers only say that they run up against foot-dragging, linked to a party, and the union's words are measured against the party's acts. The most glaring case is that of the CGT-I and the CAUS. The credibility of their ultra-leftist language the trade-union level is largely compromised by the rightist behaviour of the PSN and the PCN. It is hard to reprove the FSLN for its concessions to private ownership and at the same time sign statements with the bourgeois parties in the National refuse to participate united May Day celebration demonstrations on the same day with right-wing unions in the provincial
Nonetheless, if this demagogy has finally made some small inroads, it is largely owing to the attitude of the FSLN, which has taken up the problems forthrightly, calling on its militants to involve themselves more actively than they had before in the problems of the plants.
another debate, Carlos Gallo "The workers must assume supervision and economic management if we are to be able to deal with the crisis. As the FSLN, we think that the masses have to take up the challenge. Workers' management is a principle of the revolution, a right won by the workers." And he added: to be the masters is hard."
The FSLN's strength also lies in ability to listen to criticism and respond to it by necessary practical consequences. This is one of the aspects of a real workers'
The exemplary pluralism of this debate is another.