Labor Ferment in Puerto Rico
Jonas, Susanne
Labor Ferment in Puerto Rico SUSANNE JONAS As they stand on the picket line day after day under the hot sun of Ponce on Puerto Rico's south coast, the 500 workers at Puerto Rican Cement, now...
...On July 15, the NLRB dismissed well documented union charges that the company had been "negotiating" in bad faith and had used illegal strikebreaking tactics...
...then the company tried to negotiate a new contract taking away several previously won benefits...
...With Puerto Rico's resources at the service of U.S...
...In June, many unions met and voted to increase their support of the PRC strike...
...The family's political power extends to the mainland, where Maurice Ferre is mayor of Miami...
...Only a few years ago, the cement workers voted out their do-little AFL-CIOaffiliated union and created the independent union that the Ferre family is now trying to destroy...
...What makes the strike so crucial is that it pits the rising independent workers' movement against the most powerful capitalists in Puerto Rico...
...A fifty-year old worker made it clear that he isn't making sacrifices only for pay raises and benefits: "We are out here to save our union...
...5) To counter the powerful propaganda apparatus opposing the workers, Claridad, the daily newspaper of the PSP, with an island-wide daily circulation, has carried the cause of the strikers to the entire country...
...Despite having to survive on $10 a week from the strike fund (as compared with the $2.90 an hour they are used to) the workers are determined to persist as long as necessary and are becoming more militant, intercepting cement delivery trucks...
...3) To supplement this array of official police, the Ferres have hired a U.S.-owned private police agency, Security Associates, to provide professional strikebreakers, to infiltrate the picket line, and to harass picketers...
...As a result of a serious budget crisis and a $200 million deficit, the government has also had to cut back all services and lay off employes and withhold pay increases from thousands more...
...4) The strikers have full support from the Movimiento Obrero Unido (MOU), a coalition of more than forty unions representing the "new unionism...
...Several thousand workers at the Puerto Rican Telephone Co...
...The cement workers' union is not acting in isolation, but as part of a national process known as the "new unionism"—the replacement of pro-management and often corrupt AFL-CIO locals with honest, democratic militant unions, in many cases led by pro-independence Puerto Rican patriots or socialists...
...The strike has taken on added importance for all parties because of the broader Puerto Rican context...
...5) The established press, particularly the Ferres' own El Nuevo Dia, has mounted a massive anti-communist campaign against the PRC strikers and the independent labor movement and its political supporters such as the Partido Socialista Puertoriqueno (PSP...
...It was the Ferres who provoked the Puerto Rican Cement (PRC) strike on January 31, 1975...
...National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), while declaring the strike itself to be legal, has sided with the management against the workers in ruling on practices by both sides...
...The Ferres have spent thousands of dollars on full-page ads alleging that the union leaders are not interested in negotiating a collective pact but in " a premeditated plan to damage the economy of Puerto Rico through the systematic provocation of strikes in key enterprises such as cement.'' 6) Private banks have threatened to foreclose the mortgages on the homes of strikers or to take away their cars...
...First, it is a test of the survival ability of the "new unionism...
...The cement strike, as the most important in the recent wave of strikes, is bringing into question the very presence of the United States in Puerto Rico...
...Going beyond the picket line into the community, the various police forces have greatly stepped up repression against those supporting or associated with ,the strike—especially proindependence forces...
...Until the appearance of the SIU, negotiations had been proceeding between management and the union...
...In May, public employes threatened a mass work stoppage if the Puerto Rican Congress proceeded with a law that would severely limit their right to strike...
...In total, more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans have participated in strikes during the past few years...
...But as cement production fell off drastically, and production costs skyrocketed, his losses rose above $2 million during the first half of 1975...
...press, it is at least double that, counting those who have stopped looking for work...
...Economically, the Ferres control an industrial-financial empire of some $200 million, including many of Puerto Rico's largest enterprises in bottling, shipping, foundries, real estate, several banks, and the newspaper El Nuevo Dia...
...3) A series of mass meetings have been held to mobilize support for the strike and to oppose repression against strikers and their supporters...
...Labor Ferment in Puerto Rico SUSANNE JONAS As they stand on the picket line day after day under the hot sun of Ponce on Puerto Rico's south coast, the 500 workers at Puerto Rican Cement, now in their ninth month on strike, are learning who are their friends and their enemies...
...Mostly middle aged men—many of whom have worked for thirty years at the island's principal cement plant—owned by Puerto Rico's leading capitalist family, the Ferres—the workers see the improvements brought about by their independent, socialist-led union...
...it was the decision of the SIU to form a parallel union, recruiting strikebreakers from the massive reserve army of the unemployed in and around Ponce, which enabled management to call off the negotiations in mid-May...
...7) The U.S...
...Many of these activities were organized by pro-independence forces, especially PSP...
...several heavy industries, such as Phillips subsidiary, Fibers, have closed down, throwing thousands into unemployment...
...Unemployment has reached an official figure of 17 per cent—but, as acknowledged in the U.S...
...In a concerted effort to smash the strike, the Ferre family has lined up its most formidable allies...
...Management has also escalated its tactics...
...The Ferres control the pro-statehood party, the Partido Nuevo Progresista...
...corporations, the island's economy is battered about by the economic tides on the U.S...
...he counted on a long strike to divide the workers from their union leadership...
...Puerto Rico's famous economic "miracle" based on billions of dollars of U.S...
...were on strike for more than three months (until August), and defeated an attempt by the government, using the Teamsters, to break the independent phone workers union...
...investors is directly linked to the island's colonial status, the issue of' 'labor peace'' is not simply an economic question, but an intensely political issue...
...investment is clearly in trouble, as the effects of the economic recession in the United States hit a dependent economy, and the meaning of economic colonialism becomes graphic...
...2) To compensate for the denial of public health services since the lapse of the collective pact, the union and its supporters have organized special clinics for the strikers and their families...
...For a time, Ferre gave in and negotiated, but in mid-May he broke off negotiations...
...For example: 1) Government agencies have unofficially taken sides by denying such public services as food stamps and health services to the strikers...
...These policies of repression are endorsed by the governor of the island, who has vowed to pursue a hard line against strikes...
...In this strategic zone, U.S...
...Whatever the outcome of the strike, the Ferre family has already suffered serious losses...
...2) In their homes, on the picket line, everywhere, the strike leaders and workers and their supporters have been subjected to systematic harassment and repression by the forces of "law and order": the police, the Criminal Investigations Corps (CIC)—a special police task force—and the FBI...
...Under an existing contract, the management refused to give deserved sick pay to several employes and cut in half pension payments to retired workers...
...Some 90 per cent of the population is eligible for food stamps...
...investment in heavy industry, especially petrochemicals, is concentrated...
...4) Perhaps the most dangerous instrument of all is another union, the AFL-CIO's Seafarers' International Union (SIU...
...Moreover, the hot cement ovens could not tolerate being shut down and were cracking...
...Third, the strike comes at a time of economic recession, rising unemployment, and wild inflation...
...As one striker put it, "We know we're up against the multimillionaires...
...For weeks, Ferre refused to negotiate...
...Faced with this battery of enemies, the strikers have also mobilized support from many sectors...
...To cite a few examples: 1) At the onset of the strike, on their own initiative (overcoming some resistance by their husbands), wives of striking workers, mostly housewives, set up a support committee to raise funds and provide other services...
...Many of the U.S.-owned light industries which came to Puerto Rico in the 1950s because of the giveaway incentives and cheap labor are now moving on to still cheaper labor havens in the Caribbean...
...Finally, because Puerto Rico's historical function as a tax haven for U.S...
...mainland...
...Luis Ferre was governor of the island from 1968 to 1972...
...the striking workers were fired...
...These conditions have resulted in an increasing number of strikes during the last two years...
...The oil crisis is being felt acutely...
...they also have investments in Florida, Venezuela, and Europe...
...Second, it is occurring in Ponce, the industrial heartland of the island—the area which provides most of Puerto Rico's cement and electricity, and where the billions of dollars of U.S...
...by May 27, the SIU had signed up enough scabs in the plant to call for a new union election...
...Inflation has reached 30 per cent...
...Labor support for the cement strike was resoundingly demonstrated at the 10,000-person May 1 demonstration organized by MOU...
...This follows on a long and significant strike by water authority employes last fall, who established the right of public employes to strike...
...Tourism is undergoing the worst season ever, forcing several large hotels to close...
...Collections have been held for the strike fund, raising several thousand dollars just from other unions...
...capital and its Puerto Rican allies must demonstrate their ability to preserve "labor peace...
...the proposed law was tabled...
...In addition to the economic costs mentioned above, the Ferres have lost forever the image they had so carefully cultivated as Puerto Rico's "benevolent patron"—an image which allowed Luis Ferre to win Puerto Rico's highest office...
...Ferre knew his actions were unacceptable to the workers...
...The SIU has a long history in Puerto Rico (as in other countries) of such anti-labor activities...
Vol. 39 • December 1975 • No. 12
