From: "Steve & Mimi Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 17:35:22 +0000 Subject: (Fwd) CALL FOR NATIONAL STRIKE IN PR This massive class struggle in Puerto Rico and the on-going battle between auto workers and General Motors in the US should reduce somewhat the output of writers claiming that the class struggle has been superseded by identity politics and that the working class can no longer be the agent of revolutionary transformation of the world. The fight against the sale of the state telephone company in Puerto Rico to GTE has featured massive use of state power (police) against strikers and impressive working class solidarity leading to a call for a general strike. Capitalists are trying to deal with spreading crisis by making unprecedented attacks on workers, sharpening the contradiction between capitalism and workers' lives. Similarly, GM is pinning its survival in a global auto industry with immense excess capacity on an all out strategy of cutting union jobs, outsourcing, and relocation to low wage countries. GM workers face a huge battle for their future. In both these strikes union leaders often put forward reformist ideas and focus on the national dimensions of the struggles. But communications and auto are international industries, workers face an international capitalist crisis, and they must use these battles to learn how to destroy the system that is destroying them. We should support these struggles as much as we can. We should get students, staff, and faculty (and our union, if we have one) to express solidarity in letters or joing workers on nearby picket lines. We should discuss the significance of these struggles at the ASA/SSSP/ABS and other sociology meetings this summer. Steve Rosenthal ======================================================== ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 08:16:35 -0700 Reply-to: CWCS-L From: IRSP Subject: CALL FOR NATIONAL STRIKE CALL FOR NATIONAL STRIKE IN PUERTO RICO AGAINST PRIVATIZATION OF PHONE COMPANY 28 Jun 1998 "Cesar J. Ayala" By acclamation, 1,200 delegates from trade unions and community organizations voted on Sunday, June 28 to approve a national strike of all workers in Puerto Rico against the privatization of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. The assembly of the Comité Amplio de Organizaciones Sindicales (CAOS- Broad Committee of Trade Union Organizations) which took place in the town of Carolina, east of the capital city of San Juan, brought together delegates from more than 60 unions in Puerto Rico, including the main public sector unions which are in the forefront of the struggle against privatization. The labor movement in Puerto Rico is involved in a major confrontation against the government over the privatization of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. The state owned corporation is being sold by the administration of governor Pedro Rosselló to a group of investors led by GTE Corporation and the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico. The two unions in the Puerto Rico Telephone Company (Independent Union of Telephone Workers UIET, and Independent Brotherhood of Telephone Workers HIETEL).are on strike as of June 18. Over the last ten days, the Puerto Rico Police has deployed massive armed power against the pickets in front of the facilities of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. The president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados), Fermín Arraíza, and the Presidente of the Puerto Rican Commission on Civil Rights (Comisión de Derechos Civiles), Luis Aulet, have expressed themselves in the press against the "excessive use of force" on the part of the police of Puerto Rico. The Bar Association has posted lawyers on the picket lines as observers to guarantee that the police does not violate people's constitutional rights. Broadcasts of police beating strikers have caused an outpouring of solidarity in favor of the strikers. Unions have collected over $100,000 in donations for the strike fund from a sympathetic public which opposes the privatization of the phone company by a margin of two to one, according to local polls. The powerful Electrical Workers Union (UTIER) went on a three day strike last week. The Aqueduct Workers Union (UIA) walked out for 24 hours in support of the workers of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. The teamsters walked out in the ports The presence of delegates from the following unions and organizations was announced over the loudspeakers during today's session in Carolina: 1. AFL-CIO (Jimmy Torres) 2. Asociación de Maestros (William Ortiz) 3. Asociación Puertoriqueña de Profesors Universitarios (Rafael Bernabe) 4. Central Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores (Federico Torres Montalvo) 5. Central Unidad Sindical 6. Choferes del Este (Manuel Villanueva) 7. CILDES (Luis Rubén Rosado) 8. Comité Contra la Privatización (Zoriel Cruz) 9. Comité Organizador del CAOS (Alfonso Benítez) 10. Comite Unidad Sindical (E. Rodríguez) 11. Concilio General de Trabajadores 12. Consejo General de Estudiantes (Herminio Pagán) 13. COS (Carlos Vizcarrondo) 14. Federacion de Mestros de Puerto Rico (Renán Soto) 15. Federación de Taxistas 16. Frente Estudiantil de Río Piedras (Natalia Fortuño) 17. Frente Socialista (Jorge Farinacci) 18. Frente Universitario Contra la Privatización 19. Hermandad de Empleados del Departamento de Justicia (Magda Marrero Rivera) 20. Hermandad de Empleados Exentos no Docentes UPR (Sonia Reyes) 21. Hermandad del Departamento de Hacienda 22. Hermandad del Departamento del Trabajo 23. Hermandad Independiente de Empleados Telefónicos (Annie Cruz, Presidenta del CAOS) 24. LIDES (Carlos Quirós) 25. Liga de Cooperativas (Gregorio Vázquez) 26. Mario Roche (Cabildero Laboral) 27. Misión Industrial (Juan Rosario) 28. Movimiento Unidad Obrera Dominicana 29. Nuevo Movimiento Independentista (Julio Muriente) 30. Organización Puertorriqueña de la Mujer Trabajadora (Josie Pantojas) 31. Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (Víctor García San Inocencio) 32. Pedro Grant 33. Seafarer's International Union (Roberto Rosa) 34. Sindicato de Obreros de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (David Muñoz) 35. Sindicato Puertorriqueño de Trabajadores (Roberto Pagán) 36. SIU (Marcos Cordero) 37. Trabajadors Unidos Autoridad Metropolitana de Autobuses (TUAMA, Federico Gotay) 38. UFT (Juan Elizá) 39. Unión Abogados Asistencia Legal (Julio López) 40. Union de Abogados Sociedad de Asistencia Legal (José Roqué) 41. Union de Empleados de los Muelles (José Luis González) 42. Union de Empleados de Servicios Sociales (Luis Pedraza Leduc) 43. Unión de Empleados Municipales (Pedro Solís) 44. Unión de Empleados Profesionales de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados 45. Unión de Empleados Profesionales de la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica 46. Union de Trabajadores de la Industria Eléctrica y Riego (José Valentín) 47. Union de Trabajadores del Fondo del Seguro del Estado (Richard Rodríguez) 48. Union de Trabajadores Industriales 49. Union de Tronquistas (Teamster's Local 901, Luis Carrión) 50. Union del Sur (Jose Caraballo) 51. Unión Empleados de Navieras (Idalmis Cabra) 52. Union General de Trabajadores 53. Union Independiente Auténtica (UIA Acueductos, Hector René Lugo) 54. Unión Independiente de Empleados Telefónicos(UIET, José Juan Hernández) 55. Union Nacional de Trabajadores de la Salud (SEIU affiliate, José Rodríguez) Today's meeting approved the call for a "national strike." Tomorrow at 6:00 p.m., the Executive Council of the Broad Committee of Union Organizations (CAOS) will vote on a date and on the duration of the national strike. The local press has reported widespread sabotage against phone lines and automatic teller machines in offices of the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico. Annie Cruz, president of one of the telephone workers' unions (HIETEL) and spokesperson for the CAOS, declared today at the assembly that "the fiber optic cables have not been able to resist the people's indignation." In response to recent declarations by the chief of police, Mr. Pedro Toledo, that students, faculty from the University of Puerto Rico, and other "outside agitators" are responsible for the violence in the picket lines, HIETEL president Annie Cruz explained today that the strike of the phone workers has become a national strike against privatization. Police Chief Toledo is attempting to isolate the strike by associating it exclusively with pro-independence figures, portraying the strike as the work of "extremists." Toledo has singled out professors Rafael Bernabe and Julio Muriente of the University of Puerto Rico, Jorge Farinacci of the Socialist Front, and Ricardo Santos of the electrical workers as the " agitators" responsible for the strike. Today in the Carolina assembly, HIETEL president Cruz thanked the broad sectors of the population which have shown up at the picket lines in support of the telephone workers, defending the lines against strikebreakers and the police, and providing physical and monetary support to the strikers. Students, faculty, members of other unions and the public in general who have provided strike support are not "outsiders," declared Cruz. They are part of a broad popular movement against the takeover of the phone company by a foreign corporation. Women have played a critical role on the picket lines, and are in charge of the organization of security at critical sites such as Celulares Telefónica in Río Piedras. Last week buttons and stickers in the pickets characterized the telephone workers strike as "la huelga del pueblo" (the people's strike). In Carolina today, the 1,200 delegates voted for a "national strike" of all workers in Puerto Rico against privatization. The struggle of the phone workers has become a line in the sand for the labor movement as a whole. Privatization has been advancing in education with a recent bill which takes money from public higher education in favor of private universities, in health care, where many hospitals and clinics are being privatized, and in many other government agencies through subcontracting. The surprising level of support for the phone workers is an indication of the accumulated effect of neoliberal policies of privatization. A coalition of workers who can expect layoffs and consumers who can expect higher prices for basic services is saying, loud and clear, that the neoliberal program or privatizing everything under the sun may be good for private capital, but is bad news for the average worker and consumer. Puerto Rico no se vende The main slogan which has caught on expresses a combination of broad anti-market and anti-imperialist feelings among the population: Rendered into English, the slogan means both "Puerto Rico is not for sale" and " Puerto Rico does not sell out." Background There has been a broad based movement in Puerto Rico against the privatization of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. On October 1 of last year, over 100,000 demonstrators converged on San Juan to protest government plans to privatize the PRTC. That mobilization was the largest demonstration of any kind ever to take place in Puerto Rico. The PRTC is an efficient government owned enterprise and governor Pedro Rosselló's attempt to privatize it is due to an abstract commitment to a neoliberal economic program, not to a reality of inefficiency of government enterprise, as has been claimed. In fact, consumers who still remember the time when the local phone company was privately owned by International Telephone and Telegraph agree unequivocally that under government ownership the PRTC has provided better and more efficient service than its private predecessor. If the privatization plan is carried out, at least 2,700 workers will loose their jobs in the immediate future, and many more will loose their jobs over the medium term. ***ENVIA ESTE MENSAJE A OTROS COMPAÑERAS(OS) Y AMIGOS(AS) ----------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent via ListBot. 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