Starving Venezuela oil workers banned from quitting, lose pensions if they do.

[GatoGordo]

Hungry Venezuelan Workers Are Collapsing. So Is the Oil Industry
Starving employees are growing too weak for heavy labor, hobbling the refineries that keep the economy running.



February 22, 2018, 3:00 AM CST
At 6:40 a.m., Pablo Ruiz squats at the gate of a decaying refinery in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, steeling himself for eight Sisyphean hours of brushing anti-rust paint onto pipes under a burning sun. For breakfast, the 55-year-old drank corn-flour water.

Ruiz’s weekly salary of 110,000 bolivares — about 50 cents at the black-market exchange rate — buys him less than a kilo of corn meal or rice. His only protein comes from 170 grams of canned tuna included in a food box the government provides to low-income families. It shows up every 45 days or so.

“I haven’t eaten meat for two months,” he said. “The last time I did, I spent my whole week’s salary on a chicken meal.”

Hunger is hastening the ruin of Venezuelan’s oil industry as workers grow too weak and hungry for heavy labor. With children dying of malnutrition and adults sifting garbage for table scraps, food has become more important than employment, and thousands are walking off the job. Absenteeism and mass resignations mean few are left to produce the oil that keeps the tattered economy functioning.

-snip-

Those who quit without notice risk losing their pensions, as bureaucrats refuse to process paperwork. Many managers live in terror of arrest since the Maduro regime purged the industry, imprisoning officials from low-level apparatchiks to former oil ministers. In one human resources office, a sign advertised a limit of five resignations a day.

“Management is holding them back to stop brain and technical drain,” said Jose Bodas, general secretary of United Federation of Venezuelan Oil Workers. He estimates 500 employees have resigned at the Puerto La Cruz refinery and nearby processing facilities in the past 12 months — even though superiors have labeled them “traitors to the homeland,” a phrase that often precedes arrest. In the streets, families sell their boots and the red coveralls.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-venezuelan-workers-are-collapsing-so-is-the-oil-industry

[ffr]

1. As sad and tragic as this news is, I wish the world's oil industry would just collapse.

It's time to move on. Fossil fuels need to move on. They only serve a purpose for military operations, but for civilian applications, it's time for humans to move on to renewables.

[DetlefK]

2. We cannot move on from oil yet.

Gas is the best way to store energy. If you try to store that amount of energy in a battery, it will be much, much heavier than the equivalent amount of gas.

Batteries are simply too heavy.