Labor

Caracas, October 13, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Hundreds of Venezuelan workers took to the streets on Tuesday to demand that the acting Delcy Rodríguez government address a series of labor grievances.

The mobilization in Caracas was called by healthcare trade unions to deliver a petition at Miraflores Palace. Education and higher education unions likewise endorsed the rally, which had a turnout estimated at 2,000 people. 

Venezuelan police shepherded the march through the center of the Venezuelan capital but protesters were ultimately stopped a few blocks from the presidential palace. A commission of union representatives delivered the document, which reportedly collected over 45,000 signatures from healthcare professionals, to Venezuelan government representatives.

“It looks like the plan is to invite foreign capital by offering cheap labor,” FETRASALUD union leader Pablo Zambrano told press. “The Venezuelan workers must struggle to be fairly compensated for their work.”

Protesters echoed a longstanding demand that existing bonuses be converted into wages. The monthly minimum wage was last increased by the Venezuelan government in March 2022 and currently stands at 130 bolívars, around US $0.15. Instead, the Nicolás Maduro and Rodríguez administrations have relied on non-wage bonuses which have no impact on vacation pay, social security contributions, or severance. The income floor for public sector workers was raised to $240/month in May.

The petitions delivered on Tuesday included a demand that holiday bonuses be computed based on workers’ present incomes as opposed to the actual salary. It likewise called for the “professional responsibility bonus,” which ranges from $40 to $170 per month and is discretionally assigned to certain sectors, to be extended to retired workers, and for unions to participate in the drafting of new wage scales.

“Holiday bonuses are fundamental labor rights, and we need to have them based on the real incomes,” said Yilbert Giménez, director of the SINTRACUPEM healthcare workers’ union in Miranda state. “We are also opposed to any regressive reforms on labor matters.”

Pedro Eusse, from the CUTV labor confederation, called on workers’ organizations to unite to “defeat the plan to dismantle labor rights.”

“The government is allied with business elites whose goal is to destroy the working class’ existing social benefits and social security rights,” he told reporters. “We need a broad unity to defeat this plan.”

Labor Minister Carlos Castillo has drawn criticism in recent days over comments that he “relates to business owners” on labor costs.

“Nowadays, as I run a ministry with a significant labor weight on its shoulders and have to calculate payroll every month, I have truly started to relate to business owners,” he said during his keynote address at business association FEDECÁMARAS annual summit on Friday.

Castillo went on to say that he “understood that business owners are not an evil abstraction from ideological manuals” but rather “makers of reality who risk their capital, their mental health, and their daily effort.”

FEDECÁMARAS, the Caribbean nation’s most influential private sector lobby, has actively campaigned for labor reform reducing responsibilities for employers and eliminating the retroactive nature of social benefits and severance pay, which trade unions consider a red line.

Former FEDECÁMARAS President Jorge Roig, who currently serves as a business sector representative in a “labor dialogue” initiative mediated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), recently expressed “optimism” about securing consensus with the Venezuelan government and worker organizations.

Roig argued that the current labor conditions “are not working” and proposed the creation of a Law of Labor and Social Consensus to introduce temporary solutions adjusted to different economic sectors.

Venezuela’s historic Labor Law, approved in 2012 by former President Hugo Chávez, prohibits unfair dismissal and outsourcing, enshrines the world’s third-longest maternity leave, guarantees the right to work for both women and people with disabilities, and extends retirement pensions to all workers, including full-time mothers and the self-employed.

The ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) also staged a march in Caracas on Tuesday afternoon. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello claimed that Venezuelan workers are “the bulwark of peace” in the South American country.

“We have delivered a document supporting all the actions by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the ongoing dialogue process while also demanding the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela,” Cabello told those present.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a hero among the nation’s progressive voters, stumped in Southern California on Monday for a wealth tax on the California ballot in November that has drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending.

“What you are showing people from coast to coast and all over is that, yes, we can take on the greed of the oligarchs,” said Sanders (I-Vt.), who called Proposition 40 the most important ballot measure in the country. “Yes, we can create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.”

Sanders name-checked billionaire tech founders including Elon Musk of SpaceX, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose mentions were repeatedly met with boos from the crowd gathered at the Novo in downtown Los Angeles.

Labor leaders, speaking earlier on Monday at a union training facility in La Palma, argued that although the billionaires tax is billed as a one-time tax on the assets of the state’s wealthiest residents, it includes a loophole that would allow state lawmakers to tax the savings and retirement accounts and home equity of all Californians.

“In the trades, we know you always read the blueprints and you always read the fine print,” said Xochitl Medrano, the political director for the district council of the Ironworkers of the State of California and Vicinity. Medrano was surrounded by union workers chanting, “No on 40!”

“Our workers are not billionaires; they are working people. After 20, 30, or even 40 years of breaking their backs on the job sites, our members have the opportunity to have a decent pension, some retirement savings, and equity in a home that they’ve been working to pay off,” she said. “That’s not wealth handed to them. That’s sweat equity. … We won’t stand by and let a tax that’s supposed to target billionaires turn into a trap door for working families.”

Proposition 40 is among the most contentious issues on the Nov. 3 ballot. The measure was crafted by a healthcare union to offset $100 billion in impending federal healthcare funding cuts approved by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump last year. Millions of Californians could lose their healthcare coverage because of those cuts.

There are two opposing measures on the November ballot, Propositions 41 and 42, that would nullify the billionaires tax if either receives more votes.

About 45% of likely voters supported Proposition 40, while 42% opposed it and 13% were undecided in a late September poll by UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times. That’s a decline in support compared with a poll six weeks earlier, when 48% of likely voters supported it while 41% opposed it.

The proposal has drawn more than $300 million in campaign contributions, nearly all against it. Ballot measures are not subject to caps on campaign donations.

Sanders was joined by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and artists including the rapper Common, who called for “them billionaires to pay up” between freestyle verses. Shepard Fairey, known for his famous portrait of President Obama, unveiled banners in support of the wealth tax campaign, which served as a backdrop on the event stage.

Rally attendee Datosha Williams, an SEIU-UHW member who works in healthcare customer service, said Proposition 40 is a backstop to federal healthcare cuts, which could lead to hospital closures around the state.

“My biggest fear is that I will see some of my coworkers lose their jobs,” she said. “My biggest fear is that my 8-year-old son, who is asthmatic, will have long waits in an ER.”

At the event at the Ironworkers Training Center in La Palma organized by labor leaders to oppose the wealth tax, apprentices attended workshops about rigging and collective bargaining rights.

“We’re not opposed to making the wealthy pay their fair share. We’re not opposed to creating a high-quality and low-cost health insurance plan for Californians,” said Andrew Gonzales, the council representative for the Los Angeles and Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. “We just don’t think Prop. 40 is the right vehicle to go about that.”

Gonzales pointed to the volatile state budget’s dependence on tax revenue from wealthy Californians, some of whom have proactively moved out of the state because of the proposal.

“That’s already having an immediate impact to the state’s budget,” he said. “So we already see the danger that can occur.”

Foes of Proposition 40 attend a rally on Monday at the Ironworkers Training Center in La Palma.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

After being securely held for nearly four decades by one of the most preeminent politicians in California history, the House seat to represent bright blue San Francisco in Congress is up for grabs in November — and dividing the Democratic Party.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), 86, the powerful former House Speaker who’s held the seat since 1987, announced last year that she would not run again. In May, she passed over state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) — a prolific California legislator long considered a potential successor — to endorse San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, a local progressive with less legislative experience but strong support from labor.

Pelosi’s endorsement sent Chan, who had been languishing in polls, surging past Democratic tech millionaire Saikat Chakrabarti in the June primary. Chan finished with nearly 30% of the vote and Chakrabarti took 18%. Wiener won, with nearly 41% of the vote.

Both Wiener, a gay man and staunch advocate for the city’s large LGBTQ+ community, and Chan, who immigrated to the city from Hong Kong at age 13 and has deep ties to its large Chinese and immigrant communities, would make history by winning. Wiener would be the first out LGBTQ+ person to represent the city in Congress, and Chan the first Asian American immigrant woman.

The race has sharply divided the state’s Democratic establishment as a rare intraparty showdown between a deft legislator who has driven liberal California policy for years and a rising progressive with the powerful imprimatur of the icon they seek to replace.

Both acknowledge they would take the same or similar positions on many issues, and fiercely oppose President Trump’s agenda. But they also say San Franciscans face a real choice between them that will help define the city for years.

“There is a clear cut between the two of us,” Chan said. “He has long enjoyed establishment support and industry support, and we’ve been grassroots, on the ground, [Asian American and Pacific Islander] community, working people and labor unions — in collaboration and coalition building.”

“We need Democrats who are willing to fight — to fight in a smart way, and to fight in an aggressive way, to defeat Donald Trump and to lower the cost of living,” Wiener said. “We are past the time where we need Democrats in office who were just going along to get along, or who, like Connie Chan, are just part of the status quo.”

Wiener is a MAGA target

Wiener, 56, has lived in the Castro neighborhood since 1997 and was a deputy city attorney and local Democratic Party chair before being elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2010. He was elected in 2016 to the state Senate, where he’s had a massive influence, authoring more than 100 bills that have been signed into law. Allies and critics say he is a workhorse, and at times both effective and divisive.

Wiener has been endorsed by the state and local Democratic parties; a slew of state leaders including California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, state Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister); various queer and labor groups including AFSCME; more than half the city’s supervisors; and various members of Congress.

Wiener has passed some of the state’s most progressive laws on LGBTQ+ rights, including protections for gender-affirming care, and challenged federal immigration agents in California. He has also pushed progressive laws — backing safe injection sites, extending bar hours until 4 a.m., decriminalizing psychedelic drugs — that have put some of his fellow Democrats in uncomfortable spots when forced to vote on the controversial issues.

Some in San Francisco label him a moderate, though that designation would draw laughs elsewhere in the country and even in Sacramento. Wiener is one of the most reviled state politicians on the conservative right nationally, and has received scores of death threats for his work, particularly on transgender issues. His website touts a laundry list of profane and homophobic attacks from MAGA loyalists — Elon Musk called him a “scumbag,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called him a “communist groomer” — that he wears as a badge of honor.

On housing, Wiener has pushed for deregulation and development near transit hubs statewide to solve the housing and affordability crises, riling some homeowners averse to increased density and some progressives who say his plan favors developers and threatens existing rent-controlled housing. On tech, Wiener has pushed for artificial intelligence regulation but also been criticized for taking a technocratic approach with buy-in from wealthy tech leaders.

Wiener has passed laws protecting net neutrality, capping prescription costs and mandating mental health parity, ending mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and requiring corporations disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. He has received substantial financial support from tech leaders and opposes Proposition 40, the ballot measure that seeks to impose a one-time tax on the state’s billionaires.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), also gay and a former Long Beach mayor, said he considers Wiener a friend but also a generational legislator who has “led the country” on LGBTQ+ rights and housing policy. “I don’t think there’s a better legislator in the United States on housing,” Garcia said.

Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who worked with Wiener for years in the state Legislature, said he has been a champion for many issues important to Californians — including the environment — while holding big industry accountable and backing labor. She said while many politicians decide to either rack up easy wins with legislation that barely moves the needle or focus on “progressive value signaling” without accomplishing much of anything, Wiener “takes on some of the most difficult and controversial progressive issues and really gets them done.”

Nancy Tung, the local Democratic Party chair, said many San Francisco politicians “recede” from the city’s raucous local policy debate once they reach higher office, but Wiener is “still is in the knife fight,” especially on housing and affordability issues — showing he cares about the city and making him “such a good fit” for Congress.

Tung said she understands the appeal of sending a fellow Asian American woman to Congress in this political moment, but that Chan “just does not have the legislative record that Scott has.”

Chan for ‘working people’

Chan, 47, who lived in a rent-controlled Chinatown apartment after immigrating with her mother and younger brother, now lives with her firefighter husband and son in the Richmond neighborhood. She was a community and legislative aide for years — including for then-Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris — before being elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2020. She has served as budget chair since 2023 and has centered her campaign, largely funded by Pelosi’s network, around what she calls her “career fighting for working people.”

Chan has been endorsed by a host of Congress members, including Pelosi and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.); major labor groups including the California Federation of Labor Unions and the California Teachers Assn.; various progressive organizations and fellow and former supervisors; former mayor and S.F. power broker Willie Brown; and Chakrabarti, who since the primary has shared his campaign staff and funding with her.

Chan, who supports Proposition 40, has helped create a $400-million reserve fund in San Francisco to make up for federal cuts to Medicaid and housing subsidies. She also passed a supplemental budget to fund immigration defense services for people targeted by the Trump administration and passed various labor-friendly measures, including a minimum wage increase for in-home workers and cost-of-living adjustments for city service workers.

Pelosi said Chan “understands that budgets are statements of our values,” has “championed justice and progress for working families” and “brings an important lived experience to this moment” as an immigrant woman. Schiff said Chan has impressed him as “a very powerful voice for those who are disenfranchised” and someone with “the potential of growing into” a leader like Pelosi.

Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, said she encouraged Pelosi to endorse Chan because Chan “supports San Francisco values,” listens to labor and is a great strategist.

Cleve Jones, the San Francisco activist who has fought for gay political representation since Harvey Milk’s historic 1977 election to the Board of Supervisors, said Wiener “has done some very good things, particularly around LGBTQ issues and HIV/AIDS,” but also angered some in the LGBTQ+ community by repeatedly showing up to an annual Trans March that organizers ask politicians not to attend.

Wiener, who is Jewish, was aggressively heckled at this year’s march, namely for his stance on the Israeli war in Gaza, which he was slower than other progressives to label a genocide. Conservatives mocked him for being targeted by his base, and Wiener ended up fundraising off the incident — which Jones said was “so cynical.”

He said Wiener’s “loyalty is to big developers, big tech and big real estate,” and that he “doesn’t really see the urgency of yet another white man elected to Congress” when San Francisco can send a stronger message by electing Chan, an immigrant woman of color.

Affordability and Trump

Chan said she is a “pragmatic” progressive who has balanced the city’s budget while protecting “healthcare, education, immigration resources” and other working-class priorities. She said Wiener is focused on deregulation for market-rate housing development, whereas she has prioritized tenants’ rights and protecting existing rent-controlled housing in her push for affordable units.

Chan said she will “walk and chew gum at the same time” in Washington by working for affordability while battling Trump, including by reversing his healthcare cuts, expanding Medicaid, providing affordable childcare, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and finally figuring out meaningful immigration reform.

“I’m not sugarcoating it as if it’s easy. But we gotta be able to find ways to work together to push those things forward,” she said.

Wiener said he and Chan share the goal “of getting Trump and MAGA out of office, and then making sure that people never feel tempted to flirt with authoritarianism again.”

But he said the way to do that is to advance policies that will “lower people’s cost of living and make people’s lives more sustainable” — including by passing universal healthcare, building millions of new homes, creating low-cost child care and leading a clean energy transition — and that he is the only candidate in the race with a proven ability to do that.

“This is a race to succeed the most effective and operational member of Congress in modern American history,” Wiener said. “San Francisco should send someone who actually has a track record, a proven track record, of being able to deliver.”