Under military rule, Venezuela
oil workers quit in a stampede, by Deisy Buitrago and Alexandra Ulmer 4/17/18
CARACAS (Reuters) -
Chauffeured around in a sleek black pick-up, the head of Venezuela’s oil
industry, Major General Manuel Quevedo, last month toured a joint venture with
U.S. major Chevron.
Flanked by other trucks
carrying security guards, Quevedo passed a handful of workers waiting by an oil
well cluster. They wanted a word with the OPEC nation’s oil minister and
president of its state-run oil firm, PDVSA [PDVSA.UL], about the sorry state of
the company.
Quevedo and his caravan
drove on by. “He didn’t get out to ask workers about what is going on,” said
Jesus Tabata, a union leader who works on a rig in the oil-rich Orinoco Belt.
“That way it’s easier to keep saying everything is fine - and at the same time
keeping us on like slaves on miserable wages.”
What’s going on is that
thousands of oil workers are fleeing the state-run oil firm under the watch of
its new military commander, who has quickly alienated the firm’s embattled
upper echelon and its rank-and-file, according to union leaders, a half-dozen
current PDVSA workers, a dozen former PDVSA workers and a half-dozen executives
at foreign companies operating in Venezuela.
Some PDVSA offices now
have lines outside with dozens of workers waiting to quit. In at least one
administrative office in Zulia state, human resources staff quit processing out the
quitters, hanging a sign, “we do not accept resignations,” an oil worker there
told Reuters.
Official workforce
statistics have become a closely guarded secret, but a dozen sources told
Reuters that many thousands of workers had quit so far this year - an
acceleration of an already troubling outflow last year.
About 25,000 workers
resigned between the start of January 2017 and the end of January 2018, said
union leader and government critic Ivan Freites, citing internal company data.
That figure comes out of a workforce last officially reported by PDVSA at
146,000 in 2016.
Resignations appear to
have increased sharply this year, said Freites, a prominent union leader at
Venezuela’s major refineries in the northern Paraguana peninsula.
“It’s unstoppable,” he
said.
Many of those leaving
now are engineers, managers, or lawyers - high-level professionals that are
almost impossible to replace amid Venezuela’s economic meltdown, the PDVSA
workers and foreign executives told Reuters.
PDVSA and the Oil
Ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment. PDVSA board member
and pro-government union representative Wills Rangel acknowledged the flight of
talent is a serious problem.
“The massive
resignations are worrying,” Rangel said in an interview. “In refinery
operations, many have left.”
The pace of departures
has quickened with the rapid deterioration of PDVSA’s operations and finances -
radiating pain through the OPEC nation’s oil-based economy, now beset with food
shortages and hyperinflation.
The corporate logo of the state
oil company PDVSA is seen at a gas station in Caracas, Venezuela March 18,
2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Quevedo - a little known
former housing minister who replaced two executives jailed for alleged graft -
has further poisoned the atmosphere, according to the two dozen sources who
spoke with Reuters.
A stiff official who
rose through the National Guard, Quevedo fired many long-term employees upon
arrival and urged remaining ones to denounce any of their colleagues who oppose
Maduro. He tapped soldiers for top roles, giving the oil firm the atmosphere of
a “barrack,” two company sources said.
“The military guys
arrive calling the engineers thieves and saboteurs,” said a Venezuelan oil
executive at a private company who frequently works with PDVSA.
Quevedo is also fighting
to retain control of a company increasingly riven by turf wars. The ruling
socialists, once held together by late leader Hugo Chavez, have succumbed to
infighting under Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader who lacks Chavez’ charisma and has
seen his budget slashed with the decline in global oil prices.
Quevedo has clashed with
Venezuela’s powerful Vice-President Tareck El-Aissami. When El-Aissami in
February appointed a vice-president to the PDVSA unit that oversees joint
ventures with foreign companies, Quevedo removed the appointee and had him
arrested, according to three sources with knowledge of the incident, which has
not been previously reported. Quevedo is an ally of Socialist Party heavyweight
Diosdado Cabello.
“There is a fight
between Diosdado and Tareck for control of the industry,” said Hebert Garcia, a
former army general who later broke with Maduro and fled the country.
The political turmoil
and mass resignations threaten Maduro’s government, which depends on oil for 90
percent of export revenue.
In the Orinoco Belt,
some drilling rigs are working only intermittently for lack of crews, said two
sources there. In PDVSA’s refineries, several small fires have broken out
because there are no longer enough supervisors, two sources in the northern
Paraguana peninsula said. Lack of personnel in export terminals have forced
some ports to cut back working hours, according to two shippers and one trader.
Oil production in the
first quarter of this year slipped to a 33-year low of 1.6 million barrels per
day.
Jobs at PDVSA were once
coveted for their generous salaries and benefits, including cheap credit for housing. Now, many PDVSA workers
can’t feed their families on wages that amount to a handful of U.S. dollars a
month.
Rampant food shortages
that caused Venezuelans to report losing an average of 11 kilograms (24 pounds)
last year are particularly tough for oil workers tasked with grueling physical
work in often remote oil fields.
Some oil workers have
resorted to working odd jobs on the side, taking vacation to work abroad, or
even selling their work uniforms - red overalls - for money to eat.
Some workers in Lake
Maracaibo, a production region near Colombia, can no longer get to their jobs,
according to two sources there. Transport can cost up to 55,000 bolivars -
equal to only 10 U.S. cents, but close to what some workers earn in a day.
“Now what we ask each
other is: ‘When are you leaving and for where?’,” said one of the Maracaibo
workers, who like thousands of other Venezuelans emigrated to Colombia this
month. “Even in the bathroom, people are talking about quitting.”
At PDVSA headquarters,
Quevedo often walks through the offices with a half dozen bodyguards who clear
his path, according to one current and one former PDVSA employee.
The company’s ongoing
decay is evident all around him in the once polished office tower: Broken
elevators, poor cafeteria food, empty desks in once-crowded divisions.
Maduro has overseen the
arrest of dozens of high-level PDVSA executives since late last year, sometimes
at the Caracas headquarters as shocked employees looked on. Workers now feel
watched by supervisors and are loathe to make any business decision out of fear
they will later be accused of corruption, the sources said.
PDVSA workers, often
visibly thinner, sometimes surreptitiously hand out resumes to executives from
private companies, according to a source at a foreign firm.
In a rare protest last
month, angry Oil Ministry workers blocked access to the cafeteria, demanding
better benefits and chanting that Quevedo should resign.
Venezuela’s foreign oil
partners, which include California-based Chevron, Russia’s Rosneft and China’s
CNPC, are increasingly worried about PDVSA’s rapidly departing workforce,
according to a half-dozen sources at multinational companies operating in
Venezuela. But as minority partners, they have little or no sway over salaries
and management.
The foreign partners
have also grown increasingly frustrated with Quevedo, who initially asked for
their suggestions on fixing the state-run firm but now appears ill-disposed
toward reforms, the sources said.
At least one foreign
company is considering bringing in foreign specialists to improve its
operations, one of the sources added. But with crime, power cuts and shortages
rampant in Venezuela, luring foreign professionals is tough.
Still, in the Orinoco
belt, some vow to stay in the belief that Maduro’s government can’t last.
“We can’t give up,” said
Tabata, the union leader who watched Quevedo’s truck drive by that day. “This
government is unstable and could fall at any moment - and who will be left?”
Reporting
by Deisy Buitrago and Alexandra Ulmer; Additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa
in Punto Fijo, Marianna Parraga in Houston, and Brian Ellsworth in Caracas;
Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Brian Thevenot
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment