CARACAS, Wednesday November 26, 2008 | Update
Workers reject the delays in the negotiations of the collective bargaining agreement (File Photo: Pablo González / Efe)
Economy
Workers of Venezuela's unit of Coca-Cola FEMSA, a Mexican-based
subsidiary of the US soda drink company, are staging protests
in the states of Apure, Guárico, Sucre, Anzoátegui,
Nueva Esparta and Monagas arguing delays in the negotiations
of the collective bargaining agreement. FEMSA bottles, distributes
and sells Coca-Cola products in nine Latin American countries.
Union leader Luis Serrano reported that the workers held
an assembly on Tuesday from 5:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Barcelona,
Anzoátegui state (northeast Venezuela), as a pressure
mechanism to achieve progress in the discussion of the agreement.
Either way, the agreement between the workers who attended
the meeting is that the discussions of the bargaining agreement
resume at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor's Inspector
office in Barcelona.
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."