Last week, workers played dominoes and ping-pong as the sun went down -- another night approached in which they would make sure Chávez's supporters did not storm the gates.
Big wooden pallets blocked entrances, and banners that were draped on fences and walls read "Polar is everyone" and "You're not alone." A bus filled with workers from another Polar facility arrived to help.
Taking a moment from playing dominoes, Santos Freites, 42, who helps load trucks, said he had worked all day, gone home to eat and was now ready to settle in for nine more hours.
"This is our fight, our cause, and the reason we are here is our jobs," he said. "We are here because we need to defend our jobs, for our children and our families."
Polar worker resistance at the WaPo
Better late than never. Finally the Washington Post makes a major article about the refusal by Polar workers to be nationalized, an issue that was front page all through May (until a famous interview that sent Chavez over the edge). Juan Forero illustrates well the desperate plight of chavismo on this issue as besides Chavez backing down temporally, it seems that his only chance now at taking some of the Polar installations is through storming them in the middle of the night: