BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
The two unions representing 6,400 telephone workers in
Puerto Rico are now engaged in negotiations with government
and company officials on ending their month-long strike. The
unionists say they will remain on the picket lines until
they receive guarantees of no reprisals against them for
strike-related activity.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico's colonial governor, Pedro Rosselló, announced July 21 that his administration will go ahead with plans to sell the telephone company to a consortium led by GTE, but at a higher price than it had originally settled for.
The announced sale of the Puerto Rico Telephone Co. sparked the strike June 18. Many Puerto Rican working people, who view the state-owned company as their national patrimony, were especially outraged at what they considered the ridiculously low price GTE had offered. The Rosselló government had accepted GTE's bid of about $1.9 billion, of which the U.S. corporation was only going to fork out a small amount in cash and the rest would be covered with a loan from Citibank.
The telephone workers got a big boost from a 48-hour general strike called by a coalition of about 50 unions to oppose the sale of the phone company as well as the government's plans to privatize other state-owned enterprises. Half a million workers took part in the July 7-8 nationwide strike.
As the telephone strike gained momentum and public outrage grew, the government reversed its stance and reopened discussions following the submission of a $2 billion bid by the Spanish telephone corporation TISA.
In his latest statement, Rosselló indicated that GTE had raised its offer to match TISA's and promised no mass layoffs. The Puerto Rican government, however, cannot finalize the sale until it gets approval from a U.S. agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a fact that underlines the island's colonial status.
In a telephone interview, Annie Cruz, president of the Independent Brotherhood of Telephone Workers (HIETEL) and main spokesperson for the strikers, said the two unions had held membership meetings and approved the leadership's proposal to go back to work under certain conditions: "that there be no sanctions against the unions and no sanctions against the union members."
In addition, the strikers insisted on their right to discipline members of the union who crossed the picket lines, which company and government officials have challenged. "The company has no right to interfere in the unions' internal affairs, including our decision to sanction strikebreakers," remarked HIETEL member Abner Amy in a phone interview.
Union officials said they had decided to propose an end to the strike because the next stage of the struggle could drag out with months of negotiations in boardrooms and government offices.
"We will continue the fight against the sale of the telephone company, even after we go back to work," Cruz said, noting that the transaction was not yet completed.
In a July 21 statement, Rosselló soft-pedaled his previously intransigent position that strikers would be sanctioned. "We will welcome with open arms all telephone workers who want to return to work in good faith," he asserted. But skeptical workers note that the government also continues to insist it will "enforce all existing laws and rules and collective agreements," which constitutes a threat to victimize workers who struck.
The HIETEL president reported that the telephone strikers and other unions were planning to hold a protest July 25 in the southern town of Guánica where the ruling pro-statehood party, the New Progressive Party, will stage a rally to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of the island. Pro-independence groups are also planning a rally in Guánica that day to mark 100 years of struggle against U.S. colonial rule.
Several thousand people rallied July 19 at the Cerro Maravilla mountaintop to mark the 20th anniversary of the entrapment and execution of two young pro-independence fighters by police at that site. The Cerro Maravilla murders, which led to revelations of systematic FBI and local government persecution of the pro-independence and labor movements, sparked a major government crisis that reverberates to this day.
The general strike remains a big topic of discussion among working people in Puerto Rico. It was the first one of this scope since the 1933-34 sugarcane workers strike. "The general strike was really a people's strike, and it was a giant success," remarked Miguel Sánchez, a member of UITICE, the electrical construction workers union, in a phone interview from San Juan. "It's likely that Rosselló will go ahead with the sale of the telephone company, and the struggle will be uphill. But the general strike and the telephone strike surprised everyone, and it showed our power."
The Broad Committee of Union Organizations (CAOS), which called the general strike, has decided to call another one in August to protest the government's economic policies. The date has not yet been announced.
"If the government gets away with it, it will continue to sell off other public corporations. The next ones might be the electrical company and the workers accident compensation fund," Sánchez noted. "We have to fight against that."