Workers in Venezuela’s largest food producer vow to defend jobs after Chavez’s takeover threat

Workers in Venezuela on alert after Chavez warning

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s socialist president is threatening to “go after” the country’s biggest food producer, and the corporation’s workers are not happy about it.

Union leader Richard Prieto says employees of Empresas Polar held meetings Monday and agreed to “defend our jobs throughout the country.”

Chavez on Sunday called for authorities to investigate whether the company has been hoarding food, saying if it continues “we will have to go after Polar.”

Employees say they fear a government takeover would leave them worse off.

That’s a twist on the situation in many Latin American countries, where workers have often protested efforts to privatize state-owned companies.

“All the companies the president … has expropriated, all those companies have gone bust,” Prieto said in a telephone interview from the northwestern city of Barquisimeto.

He cited the example of Vengas, a natural gas company that was seized by the government and is now called Gas Comunal.

“That company was the best gas business here in Barquisimeto,” he said. “Now you can’t get gas.”

And the workers of that company have been at loggerheads with the government on a new union contract for four years, Prieto added.

At Polar, “we’re the best-paid of any company in the country” and have good benefits, said Prieto, who is president of the union at Cerveceria Polar, the group’s beer-making unit. “We feel proud to work for this business.”

Chavez wondered aloud Sunday what the government would do with Polar’s brewery in the event of a takeover, and said he would shut down the beer-making operation.

Last week, National Guard troops seized 132 tons (120 metric tons) of food that officials accused Polar of hoarding in storage. And last month, Chavez ordered a state takeover of property in Barquisimeto where Polar has warehouses and offices. Workers have protested that decision.

The government’s tough stance against Polar comes as the country is struggling with sporadic shortages of some food, including sugar, corn meal, beef and butter. Analysts blame government price controls for the shortages.

Chavez has called Polar a monopoly and has accused it in the past of evading government price controls on basic foodstuffs by producing fewer of the price-controlled items.

Polar has denied wrongdoing and called the recent seizures of its merchandise an arbitrary “confiscation” by the government — which has nationalized other businesses in areas from cement to telecommunications in recent years.

Polar’s president, Lorenzo Mendoza, is one of the country’s wealthiest men. He said last week that “private investment has no substitute, and that’s been shown not only in Venezuela but in the world.”

Empresas Polar produces food made from grains, margarine, sauces, vinegar, ice cream, sea food, sodas, jams, animal food and Polar beer, among other items. It has 17 plants across the country and employs about 32,000 people.