PUERTO RICO
Water workers walk out over healthcare benefits
By Arturo J. Pérez Saad
When the government-run Aqueducts and Sewage Authority (AAA)
tried to cut workers' health benefits and stopped negotiating
on this issue, the Independent Genuine Union (UIA) walked out
on strike Oct. 5 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
An Oct. 10 meeting of some 55 unions declared themselves
ready for a national strike in solidarity with the UIA.
The AAA had refused to negotiate regarding contributions to
the worker's healthcare plan, and threatened to suspend the
plan. It also had moved from the bargaining table 15 other
clauses in the contract.
Behind the health-care cut is a multi-million-dollar
contract with the insurance group Triple S. In August, without
worker consent, the AAA decided to replace Blue Cross, the
workers' insurance carrier, with Triple S, in an attempt to
undermine the union's protection for its workers through a
contract.
Hector René Lugo, president of UIA, which represents
4,000 of the 6,000 AAA workers, said the union was confronting
a direct attack on "the lives of workers and their right to
have a union." Lugo referred to the company's recent anti-union
actions, including hiring scabs, who have crossed picket lines
in an attempt to break up the strike.
This strike is reminiscent of the 70,000-strong grocery
worker strike in California last year. There too the bosses'
withdrawal of health-care rights from the bargaining contract
provoked the strike.
The AAA has carried on a bitter daily diatribe against the
UIA in the local newspapers like El Nuevo Día. On Oct.
10, after two-plus marathon days of negotiating, the AAA
appeared willing to accept the UIA demand that workers have the
right to choose either their own health-care plan or the AAA
plan.
The AAA argues that since the workers have chosen the union
plan, the workers will now be responsible for subsidizing their
own healthcare plan. This would mean no retroactive payments
into the workers' health plan by the bosses.
In response, Lugo said, "This would be retaliation [by the
bosses] since the workers chose our medical plan" [instead of
the AAA's plan]. He pointed out that the AAA's proposal
stipulates that neither agency shall discriminate against the
workers.
Some of Puerto Rico's militant unions like the Federation of
Puerto Rican Teachers, the Union of the Electrical and
Irrigation Workers, and the Association of Exempt Non-Teaching
Employees, as well as the Socialist Front and the Socialist
Workers Front, have declared their support with the UIA workers
on strike.
On Oct. 10 in a packed meeting at the Teamsters Union
headquarters in San turce, representatives from 55 different
unions announced their unanimous support for the UIA's strike.
Seven statements of support included the possibility of a
national strike as an act of solidarity.
Victor Villalba, president of the Puerto Rican Central of
Workers, announced that "we are evaluating the national strike"
probability very closely, and that it can be declared "at any
time."
Reprinted from the Oct. 21, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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