Puerto Rico’s teachers want sovereign union

In the United States, AFL-CIO membership is at an all-time low and internal strife over the direction of the labor movement is now open to heated debate.

In the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico, however, the American Federation of Teachers, a member of the AFL-CIO, is on the defensive—but from the workers. Last year, on Sept. 29, a delegates’ meeting of the Federation of Puerto Rican Teachers (FMPR) voted over 70 percent in favor of disaffiliating from the AFT. The FMPR, representing over 43,000 teachers, is the largest union in Puerto Rico.

The vote to disaffiliate was due to a long history of corruption, misuse of dues money and the vaporization of the workers’ medical plan under the tutelage of the AFT. An overwhelming majority voted in favor of the independent move and have taken control of how their dues money—over $2.6 million a year—will be spent.

Rafael Feliciano Hernández, president of the FMPR, told AFT leaders at a closed meeting on June 7 that the money “was taken from us without supplying us with any essential benefit [and] since we don’t have to pay [them the] $2.6 million that the AFT used to take, we have more resources to attend to the necessities of the FMPR and its membership.” In addition, “We, the FMPR, do not recognize the AFT since we democratically voted to disaffiliate from you last year.”

Since the vote last year the AFT has not respected the democratic choice of the teachers. It has utilized any means available to undermine the sovereignty of a colonized people by paying hefty salaries to dissidents and making backroom deals with the Puerto Rican government to bring the FMPR under its trusteeship.

The AFT believes it can impose its will, under the veil of democracy, while it criticizes the FMPR leadership as undemocratic. Sound familiar? It’s the same arrogant excuse President George W. Bush now uses to continue U.S. occupation of the sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan: “We [the USA] are bringing democracy to the region.”

Since the disaffiliation, the FMPR has eliminated its budget deficit and has been using the participatory model as its modus operandi, where the workers themselves choose how they want their dues money spent.

A growing number of AFL-CIO Puerto Rican affiliate unions have democratically voted their independence.

The previous governor, Pedro Rosselló (1992-2000), began to privatize every public sector enterprise. This has created a backlash of resentment and protest.

The privatization took place under the AFT’s watch, which drained the medical plan of the FMPR of $43 million, thus driving it to extinction.

Hernández of the FMPR blames the AFT and the pro-AFT members, many of whom are ex-FMPR leaders, for “embezzling” the money and for not doing anything to stop the erosion of the workers’ health-care benefits.

This past June 7, the AFT held a closed meeting in the Normandie Hotel in San Juan to discuss legal, extra-legal and anti-democratic ways to take over the FMPR. Hundreds of teachers from the FMPR and workers from over 40 independent unions in Puerto Rico protested outside the hotel. A small delegation from the executive committee broke into the meeting to denounce the vile attempts of the AFT to undermine the Puerto Rican teachers’ right of self-determination.

More strategizing meetings continue as the FMPR negotiates a collective bargaining agreement with the Puerto Rican government.

Pérez Saad is an AFT member in the United States.