BY RON RICHARDS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Several thousand workers celebrated International Workers Day by marching from Luis Muñoz Rivera to the Capitol here. The march was called by the same trade union groups that organized a demonstration last October of 100,000 people against the proposed sale of the government-owned telephone company. The lead banner read "Puerto Rico no se vende" - Puerto Rico is not for sale.

The pro-statehood government of Pedro Rosselló is still trying to sell the telephone company and is expected to announce the buyer in the coming weeks. Besides the Puerto Rico Telephone Company, the government has or is in the process of selling hospitals, sugar mills, pineapple fields, and a shipping company. At the government-owned water authority, a lucrative contract has been given to a private company.

The Rosselló government has proposed cutting the budget of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) to supposedly use this money to provide scholarships from the kindergarten to university level. These scholarships could be used to pay for private education. In response to this attack the University Front Against Privatization, which includes student groups and unions of university workers and professors, shut down the UPR system with a strike on April 30 and joined in the May 1 march.

Ron Richards is a member of the American Federation of Government Employees.  
 
 
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