Public Employee Press

General strike hits Puerto Rico layoffs

San Juan’s financial district was deserted and schools throughout Puerto Rico closed Oct. 15 as 200,000 workers hit the streets in the island’s largest rally ever — part of a general strike and national day of protest against massive job cuts in the public sector.

Republican Gov. Luis Fortuño — the George Bush of Puerto Rico — threatened to arrest the demonstrators as terrorists under the Patriot Act. Fortuno fired 8,000 government workers in June and July and said he would axe another 17,000 in November and shut 40 government service agencies.

DC 37’s parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, represents 22,000 government workers in Puerto Rico’s Servidores Publicos Unidos (United Public Servants) Concilio 95. AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee took part in protests and the union contributed $200,000 to the cause.

While union workers and their supporters shut down San Juan, organized labor and elected officials in New York, Pennsylvania and Chicago rallied in defense of the Puerto Rican workers and demanded that the governor cancel the layoffs.

Members of DC 37, the United Auto Workers, 1199 SEIU and the City Council gathered on the steps of City Hall at the demonstration to denounce Gov. Fortuño’s plan.

“We know what our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters are going through,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts told the throng. “We have a mayor who also doesn’t care about our public employees and who squanders the taxpayers’ money on private contracts, while laying off our members.”

“We will fight any attempt to kill the labor movement and collective bargaining agreements in Puerto Rico,” said Sonia Ivany, president of the New York City chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.

Fortuno’s Public Law 7 declared a state of fiscal emergency in March; it also suspended public employees’ collective bargaining rights, but the legislature has reversed that part of the law.

The New York City Council passed a resolution introduced by members Rosie Mendez, Melissa Mark-Viverito and John Liu that calls on Fortuño to meet with the unions to discuss alternative solutions to the island’s fiscal crisis.

With Puerto Rico’s recession in its fourth year, Fortuno’s layoffs could push unemployment above the current 16 percent, higher than any U.S. state. The businessman backed Bush and claimed he would create jobs by privatizing government and cutting taxes, but the economic crisis there has deepened. The layoffs are part of his strategy to convince Wall Street not to downgrade his government bonds to junk status.

— Alfredo Alvarado