Unions mobilize in Puerto Rico
By
Tom Soto
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Published Nov 18, 2005 9:46 PM
For a week, starting
Nov. 6, three important mobilizations of workers and their families took place
here in the capital of this Caribbean nation, which was invaded by the United
States in 1898 and has since been ruled as a virtual colony.
Thousands of teachers open up a week of labor struggles.
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Demonstrators
numbered in the thousands in what may well be a harbinger of what is to come.
The marches showed a developing struggle against layoffs of public employees,
the government’s refusal to negotiate wage increases with public employee
unions, a skyrocketing cost of living, efforts to privatize state-owned
corporations, and continuing cutbacks of services by the colonial
government.
In September 2004, Moody’s Investor Services and
Standard & Poor’s—two of Wall Street’s bond-rating
houses—had announced they were downgrading the credit-worthiness of Puerto
Rico’s government bonds. Moody’s pointed to a government debt of
$39.4 billion and a current budget deficit in fiscal year 2005.
Throughout
the summer and fall, the P.R. government has been imposing layoffs on public
employees through early retirement plans. It recently repeated threats to lay
off public employees en masse.
Wall Street pushing for
more
Under the direction of the Wall Street investment houses, the
government has implemented an austerity plan to keep Moody’s and Standard
& Poor’s from further downgrading the bond ratings. Representatives of
these two firms and of the Puerto Rican client government are scheduled to meet
on Nov. 22.
The austerity measures carried out thus far have hit the
workers and the poor hardest. Electricity rates have risen 100 percent, bus
fares have increased by 300 percent, highway tolls by 43 percent, car
registration fees by 100 percent, tuition fees for the public universities by 40
percent, and water usage rates by 74 percent—with another 74 percent
increase to take effect next year.
These government-sponsored increases
have ushered in a period of spiraling inflation, promoting further increases in
the prices of all basic foodstuffs and other necessities of life.
On Nov.
10, in a barely publicized meeting, Puerto Rico’s secretary of the
treasury, the director of its Office of Manage ment and Budget, and the
president of Puerto Rico’s Development Bank met with 50 attorneys
representing Wall Street investment houses.
As a result of this
closed-door meeting, Wall Street demanded that, before it would approve Puerto
Rico’s credit-worthiness, the Puerto Rican Legislature must approve a new
tax code imposing a 9 percent “consumer tax” on the working
public.
Puerto Rico has never had a sales tax because of the low salaries
here—which on average are one-third of those in the U.S. Per-capita income
here in fiscal year 2004 was $12,947.
In this atmosphere of fiscal and
debt crisis, the P.R. government has been adamant that it will not negotiate
wage increases with public employee unions.
Teachers’ union takes
lead
On Sunday, Nov. 6, thousands of teachers wearing bright yellow
T-shirts identifying their union, the Federation of Teachers marched militantly
through the narrow streets of Old San Juan, gathering at the Plaza de
Colón, marching to the capitol building where the Puerto Rican
Legislature is housed, and then to the governor’s seaside
mansion.
The demonstration numbered many thousands, whose lead banner
said: “If you can read this, give thanks to a teacher—We demand
justice for teachers.” Their yellow flags and banners drew the attention
of service workers, residents, shopkeepers and tourists.
Their chants,
demanding retirement after 25 years’ service and 15 children per
classroom, echoed off the buildings. The protest was so large that when the
front of the march reached the governor’s mansion, the end was still
leaving the Plaza de Colón.
The Federation of Teachers is the
largest union in Puerto Rico, with some 32,000 members.
Its president,
Rafael Feliciano, told the crowd at the governor’s mansion: “The
Federation is ready to struggle ... for just salaries, and we demand that our
schools give our students a quality education, that they have adequate
facilities and the necessary resources, so that Puerto Rico can lift itself up,
strengthening our culture and being an example for all of us.”
He
explained how the union had prepared its negotiating proposal for six months,
but when delegates sat down to negotiate, the Department of Education had no
proposal, meaning, “They have no plan to improve the educational
system.”
Feliciano pointed out that the Depart ment of Education
wants to eliminate parent, teacher and student participation at the local school
level. He stressed that “more than 90 percent of our bargaining contract
is directed at bettering the educational system. It is not a contract to enrich
ourselves but to lift the education system of our
country.”
Referring to the government’s refusal to even
consider salary increases, under the guise of the current fiscal crisis,
Feliciano said: “It is irresponsible to say there is no budget for salary
increases for teachers because we are negotiating a contract to take effect over
the next budget, not the present one.”
Electrical workers oppose privatization
On Nov. 9, the Electrical Industry Workers
Union pulled out its membership in a one-day strike to demand that the
government stop outsourcing the jobs of union members to private contractors and
stop any effort to privatize the state-owned Electrical Energy Authority
(AEE).
Early in the morning, workers began to gather at the main office of
the AEE in Santurce, to later march to the capitol building and the
governor’s mansion.
Behind a banner reading, “United we can
stop the privatization of the AEE,” the 4,500 workers—more than 95
percent of the entire union membership—literally took over the four-mile
route. They were led by 300 motorcycles bearing the blue-and-yellow flags of the
union.
For years the union has been campaigning against the sale of this
state-owned corporation to private industry, such as occurred with the sale of
the Puerto Rico Telephone Co. in 1998. This week the Legislature, under the
pressure of the growing movement, approved a bill opposing privatization of the
AEE, and several legislators spoke at the rally.
Agustín de Jesus,
participating in a contingent of retirees, told this reporter: “Although
we welcome the expression of the Legislature opposing privatization, you can
never trust these capitalist politicians. Only the continued unity and
mobilization of the workers can safeguard against
privatization.”
That same day, the governor’s office issued a
statement claiming that the government had no intention of privatizing the
Electrical Energy Authority.
On Nov. 10, the Federation of Workers of
Puerto Rico, which is affiliated to the AFL-CIO, held a demonstration in front
of the governor’s mansion. Unions urged members to bring their shoes, and
they made a pile of them in front of the mansion. “If [Gov. Acevedo
Vilá] were to put himself in the shoes of the public employees, who are
threatened by a reduction of wages and by layoffs at a time when the inflation
indexes have skyrocketed, he would have a different view,” said
José Rodríguez, president of the Federation.
The ongoing
fiscal and debt crisis, the threatened layoffs and the refusal of the government
to consider wage increase for public employees, the inflation in the prices of
all basic commodities—all these factors are pushing the class struggle to
the fore. Thus far the organized labor movement is holding its own and preparing
for future battles.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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