& # 039; Help, we need a boss here & # 039;: Workers & # 039; The anguish as companies leave...
& # 039; Help, we need a boss here & # 039;: Workers & # 039; The anguish as companies leave Venezuela
Recently he joined other multinational companies that left Venezuela in the midst of a dispute with the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro.
But this case comes with a twist. Hundreds of employees, who had the Irish company for transport, education, housing and food, continue to appear at work. They take turns to protect the idle heavy machinery from looting that has become rampant when Venezuela plunges into hyperinflation and economic chaos.
Your hope: that someone, anyone other than the Maduro administration, come and restart operations.
Smurfit employees take turns protecting heavy machinery against looting that has become rampant as Venezuela plunges into economic chaos.
"Help, we need a boss here, we're desperate," said Ramón Mendoza, a worker with Smurfit's forestry division for 17 years. "We are so scared because now we know that everything the government does is destroy everything, all business."
Their plight underscores the devastation faced by rural communities in Venezuela as private companies leave a country that was once the richest in Latin America. The economy has been reduced by half in the last four years and the International Monetary Fund considers inflation next year will reach 10 million percent worldwide, which will push millions of Venezuelans to flee. Mr. Maduro has responded by intensifying price controls and intervening in the private sector.
A survey conducted by the Venezuelan Industrial Confederation found that more than 200 industrial companies closed their doors in the second quarter of 2018, while almost half of the respondents said they were working at a capacity of around 20% due to the lack of raw Materials.
"This is very serious," said Juan Pablo Olalquiaga, president of the confederation. "We are talking about a very strong contraction."
Smurfit, who had worked here for six decades, abruptly withdrew in late September, after Venezuelan military officers arrested several managers and seized their plants. Authorities accused the company of market speculation and demanded that it lower prices of some products by 80%, according to union leaders. Smurfit denied the charges. The company did not respond to requests for comments. Two of its managers are still detained.
The closure of Smurfit left 1,600 unemployed people and large companies
A Polar Companies without packaging materials, said Olalquiaga.
stopped production at a plant last month because it lacked boxes to pack its soaps and detergents, said Carlos Rodriguez, a union leader there.
In an oil-dependent country, Smurfit was one of the few non-energy companies that produced their own raw materials and even exported products. Their retirement is problematic for the dismissed workers and the surrounding communities scattered throughout the country, which are increasingly dependent on the company as the country goes into crisis.
The workers living nearby had received no interest loans from Smurfit for their homes. Residents said they can no longer count on the four ambulances paid by the company to serve the tin-roofed shack communities.
At the Agricultural Technical School in the nearby town of Acarigua, which was financed entirely by Smurfit, almost 200 children live in extreme poverty He used to receive education, lodging and hot meals that have become a luxury when public schools collapse. For two decades, many of its graduates had gone to work for Smurfit.
It was assumed that the academic year would begin on October 1. But without money to feed and transport the students, there is silence in the corridors, which makes the school psychologist Maria Vielma cry.
Vladimir Sequera, above, is the stepfather of Gabriela Sequera, who studied at a technical school financed by Smurfit that has not reopened since the company closed its operations. She aspired to be a lawyer.
"This used to be a family. I just do not have words at the moment, "said Vielma." We have a government that is dedicated to destroying, not building. "
Vladimir Sequera, a 34-year-old farmer, said he had never passed the sixth grade, but he had higher hopes for his 15-year-old stepdaughter, Gabriela Sequera, who would have started her fourth year in technical school. She aspired to be a lawyer.
"It's like poof," Mrs. Sequera said, snapping her fingers. "The whole future was taken away from us."
Smurfit had faced many provocations over the years, including the expropriation of several forest properties by the mentor and predecessor of Mr. Maduro, the late Hugo Chávez. Much of that nationalized land, on the outskirts of Ospino, is stripped of trees that were cut as fuel and that are now occupied by small barracks.
In recent years, as companies of
to
to
They have left Venezuela: the revolutionary government hastened to take its factories.
But the production of companies has collapsed, their products are scarce. On social media, Maduro's allies have posted videos of the Kellogg factory celebrating while a Corn Flakes box rolls down the assembly line. However, plant workers say that what is produced is taken away by government supervisors.
The machinery operator Wilfredo Torres went through the paper cylinders in a Smurfit warehouse in Valencia, Venezuela.
"It is shooting the country in the foot," said Raúl Gallegos, who advises the companies at the Control Risk consultancy, referring to Mr. Maduro. "It shows the cruelty of making people more dependent on government. It's pretty dark. "
In recent days, the administration of Maduro, with a shortage of cash, said it had devised a solution for the Smurfit plant: that the workers should manage it themselves. The government said it would not nationalize it, but appointed a temporary board to help restart operations. The Ministry of Labor did not provide details on how it would replace the Smurfit distribution network through which the company supplied its own subsidiaries abroad.
But workers say they can not run the plant on their own and insist they want bosses, but not the government. "We know how to move the wood from here to the plants. What do we know about finance and marketing? "Mr. Mendoza said.
For many of the Smurfit workers, the end came quickly. At the end of September, workers unexpectedly received compensation packages in their bank accounts. Gabriel Márquez, who worked at a Smurfit plant in Valencia for almost 11 years, said he used it to invest in a single bill of $ 20.
"What a gift," he said.
- Ginette González in Caracas and Tibisay Romero in Valencia contributed to this article.
Write to Kejal Vyas in kejal.vyas@wsj.com
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