In the US, Citgo is an oil refiner and marketer is about the same as any of the others on the enviroment and most of the other things oil companies do. But a new film in Los Angeles produced by Global Women's Strike, called "Enter The Workers" about workers at Venezuela's state oil company, PdVSA, (which supplies Citgo), shows a very different aspect of the story.

The documentary, which was first shown at the East Side Cafe in Alhambra/LA on Sunday as part of a benefit for the Million Workers March in Washington next week, shows the extent of effort Venezuela's workers went through to produce oil in the face of a brutal lockout by management, which called an illegal strike in 2002-2003. Unlike management, the oil workers wanted no part of that strike, because it was done explicitly to damage the Venezuelan economy and overthrow President Hugo Chavez. The net result was a cutoff of oil to all of Venezuela's buyers (which included the US) in the first part of 2003. This, along with the runup to the Iraq War, knocked oil prices skyward from $1.30 at the pump to $1.80 or so. It was Venezuela's oil management's gift to the US drivers, it seems.

But these locked out Venezuelan oil workers had very little to fight back with. They inherited the abandoned oil colossus at the end of the strike, which eventually ridded the company of 18,000 managers who walked out. But on their way out, management damaged computers, stole software, messed up refinery configurations for the production of fuel, sabotaged gas stations, and made at least 19 efforts to blow up or disrupt oil pipelines. The workers grouped together and supported each other in guarding the company so that they could produce petroleum for the country and for the other countries Venezuela supplies. And in turn get cash which would be used for social programs. These workers' ultimate triumph was to get their company producing again without management, its expertise or its information technology. They succeeded and learned they didn't need management. Today Venezuela produces as much oil as it did before the 18,000 PdVSA managers abandoned the job.

For us in the U.S., their actions directly keep oil prices here in the U.S. from rising any higher than they already are as a result of Bush's war. Other than the managers' strike in 2002-2003, Venezuela has never disrupted the supply of oil to the U.S. The best way to make a statement about it in solidarity with Venezuela's tenacious workers, and everything they went through to get the supply out, is to buy Venezuela's own gasoline - which you can get at Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan government. Bush and his oil cronies don't get a drop of its profits.


>Global Women's Strike - work with us or get a copy of the film


>Million Workers March - come to this event



Local Citgos in LA - worth patronizing