2023 did not begin for Nicolás Maduro with the good expectations of 2022. A year ago the end of hyperinflation and a rebound in oil production were in sight.
Today the hyperinflationary shadow has reappeared and the goal of reaching one million barrels per day, well below even what Venezuela once produced, remained among the pending issues.
In everyday conversation, the increase in prices generates concern among Venezuelans and astonishment among those who returned to spend the holidays with their families after emigrating from what is now one of the most expensive countries in the region.
January began with a wave of demonstrations by sectors of the state administration over salaries and the economic crisis.
Venezuela closed the year 2022, according to figures from the Venezuelan Finance Observatory, with an annualized inflation of 305.7%, the highest in the region and the world, while the bolivar devalued 73% against the dollar that already dominates almost the entire economy, albeit informally.
The minimum wage was set in March 2022 at 130 bolivars per month (which today is equivalent to about seven dollars), so more than 50 minimum wages are needed to cover the food basket that is close to 400 dollars.
This is what a large part of public workers and more than 5.3 million pensioners and retirees receive.
“They have hit us in the pocket and in the stomach.
There must be a minimum wage, a pension and a salary that rescues the purchasing power of the workforce.
This is the only way we understand that there can be an economic recovery," says Emilio Lozada with concern, president of the Federation of Retired and Pensioners of Venezuela, who at 76, after dedicating his life to public administration, has no way to pay for exams. to operate on a cataract that has appeared in one of his eyes.
Since last Monday, thousands of workers, professionals, workers and technicians, linked to the teaching profession, the health sector, the steel and metal-mechanic sectors, the public administration, the autonomous universities and also pensioners and retirees have demonstrated simultaneously in across the country to demand the dollarization of their income and the improvement of their working conditions.
The response of the union members to the calls has surprised their own organizers, at a particularly indifferent political moment after the weakening of opposition pressure.
A new national day of mobilization is called for this Monday, and another one more ambitious for January 23, a date of enormous symbolic value in Venezuelan politics,
in which the last military dictatorship in Venezuela was overthrown in 1958 to establish a democratic and consultative regime in the country.
Date that Chavismo also celebrates and claims as its own.
“In protest demonstrations where before a maximum of 50 people attended, now up to 900 are showing up,” says Víctor Márquez, union leader and member of the Association of Professors of the Central University of Venezuela.
“The teachers have joined the protests, as well as the health sector, which before was only called by universities.
It has fueled a malaise that exists and has become generalized”.
The monthly income of teachers is between 20 and 24 dollars.
The return to classes this January has been marked by protests and the absence of teachers.
A few days ago an angry group of protesters left the Central University of Venezuela and blocked the main highway in Caracas demanding living wages.
Some sectors of the left, traditional allies of Chavismo, such as the Communist Party of Venezuela, are calling and participating in the protests, which until now have been peaceful.
The economist José Guerra points out that during 2022, even with the sanctions, the Government doubled its income due to the increase in the price of oil after Russia's war in Ukraine and a slight increase in oil production to around 700,000 barrels per day, after arriving to its historical lows in 2021. Even so, Maduro maneuvers with an economy that has not yet emerged and has experienced an artificial recovery, especially in the commercial sector, leveraged by imports, which has little traction with the rest.
The oil recovery has a window of opportunity with the licenses granted by the United States to Chevron and a possible opening of licenses to other companies, but they will have to reverse years of disinvestment, corruption and mismanagement in the industry.
“It is clear that the country has not been cured of hyperinflation.
Having inflation above 25% for three months in a row puts you on that path again.
And that there has not been a salary increase yet.
What the Government is doing is a very biased fiscal adjustment against the worker”.
The annoyance in the country's labor sectors due to their meager income led to a series of disagreements in recent months.
Chavismo has replaced the salary with small unilateral bonuses that it assigns through the country card, like the one that teachers received this Sunday for Teachers' Day on the eve of the great protest called for this Monday.
The disagreements with the so-called “Onapre instructions”, which placed limits on salary increases, in July of last year, further irritated the public sector union leadership, which argues that the Executive violates collective agreements.
Six union leaders remain in custody after the protests at the time, accused of conspiracy and criminal association.
Nicolás Maduro himself has apologized to the workers and has declared that the country's workforce must understand "the effects of the blockade and the economic war of the oligarchy" that his government has had to face, arguing that, for the moment, there is no could authorize increases.
“Due to the economic war resumed by some sectors from Miami, we had a strong disturbance in the exchange rate.
We are aware and acting ”, he excused himself during the delivery of his Report and Account a few days ago.
Some armed groups organized and trained by Chavismo have recorded videos that circulate on social networks, in which they issue serious warnings to the protesters about the limits of their conduct and the risk they face if they continue protesting.
Massive protests have also been generated at the gates of companies in the industrial estate of the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana, steel and aluminum producers, an area controlled by Chavismo unions for years.
In the Siderúrgica del Orinoco, Sidor, the protests lasted for 48 hours.
A group of angry workers took over one of the industrial complexes, in an episode in which there were nine arrests of union leaders who were later released.
The increase in street calls is putting some leaders to work in a hurry in some collective platform, in a civil front committed to social demands, separated from the parties.
"There is overheating of the streets in Venezuela, labor demands repressed, with teachers and health workers at the forefront," says Samuel Pérez, sociologist and member of Apucv.
“But this is a movement with serious coordination problems,” he adds.
“The attendances have been spontaneous.
There are mobilizations for material needs, but nothing regarding a program or a structured plan.”
The Maduro government has pending commitments with the International Labor Organization, with whom it agreed to meet last year, after repeated complaints of violations of collective bargaining and the imprisonment of union leaders.
The installation of a minimum wage technical table was one of the recommendations made by the agency, although it has not yet materialized.
At the end of last year, the business association Fedecámaras proposed an increase in this remuneration between 200 and 300 dollars, an unusual request in this sector, with a view to increasing consumption having its effect on economic growth.
At the end of this month, ILO representatives will return to the country to resume talks in a series of meetings on the island of Margarita.
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