CWU affiliates to Hands Off Venezuela

Thirty delegates and visitors from the national conference of the Communication Workers Union attended the very first Hands Off Venezuela fringe meeting, held on Monday lunchtime in windswept Bournemouth. The day before, the 250,000-strong union, which organises both postal and telecommunications workers, had unanimously agreed to support the Venezuelan Revolution and also affiliate nationally to HOV. The fringe meeting itself was officially sponsored by the union, which also met the costs of refreshments, as was the room hire, covered by a generous donation from London branch 7.

Rob Sewell, who chaired the meeting, gave a welcome to all present and thanked the conference delegates for voting to affliliate the union to HOV. Espe Espigares, from the HOV national steering committee, started things off referring to the tremendous impact of President Chavez's visit to London last week. She went on to summarise some of the attacks which had been launched against the Bolivarian Revolution and how they differed from the reality of the situation. Indeed, she added, it would take two hours, at least, to list all the advances in social care, education, health, etc. which had been carried out over the last few years - including the abolition of illiteracy - in Venezuela. The next speaker was Tony Kearns, senior assistant general secretary of the CWU, who came along to stress the union's international solidarity with the struggle of the Venezuelan masses and the CWU's support for Chavez against the attacks from Bush and co. The final speaker was Jane Loftus from the CWU National Executive, who had been one of the union's two delegates to the WSF rally in Venezuela last January. She was able to provide first hand experience of what it was like to see the revolution unfolding before her very eyes. She said she was able to see clearly what advances had been made but also warned of the dangers from the forces of reaction and the need to mobilise support and solidarity. Although the meeting was a very short one, organised in between two sessions of conference, the mood was very good and a number of CWU activists expressed interest in getting speakers from HOV to address their local branches. Nealy £100 worth of DVDs, magazines and t-shirts were also sold.

The following is the full text of the resolution passed by CWU Conference:

This Conference congratulates and supports the colossal advances being made by the Venezuelan Revolution under President Hugo Chavez in carrying out policies, which benefit working people, the poor and the landless.

However, Conference views with alarm the bellicose threats from the USA Administration and the negative statements from Tony Blair, Which only serve to isolate the Venezuelan Government. Conference therefore opposes all outside interference in the affairs of Venezuela and calls on the Labour Governement to build fraternal ties with Venezuela.

Furthermore, Conference in particular congratulates the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign in its excellent work to popularise and build support for the Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution and calls upon the Union to affiliate to the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign and help promote its work.