BY RON RICHARDS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Tens of thousands of workers and youth marched here October 1 as part of a 24-hour general strike to protest the proposed sale of the Puerto Rico Telephone Co. More protests are expected, as Governor Pedro Rosselló has vowed to continue with the privatization of not only the telephone company but other government-owned facilities such as hospitals, hotels, power plants, and sugar mills. One of the most popular slogans was "Puerto Rico is not for sale!"

Estimates of the number of people at the march ranged from 150,000 by the union organizers to 60,000 by Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo. Most of the participants were public sector workers or students. This colony of the United States has a population of 3.8 million people.

The strike stopped ferry service to the island of Vieques, where several hundred people marched who were unable to attend the main march. Some 40 people rallied in New York as well.

The largest participation in the strike was among teachers and workers at the government-owned telephone, water, and electricity utilities. Other public sector workers who participated in the march included transit, hospital, bank, tourism and postal workers. Members of the private sector unions who marched included dock, brewery, and construction workers. Members of the retirees club of the garment workers union UNITE rode on a truck provided by the AFL-CIO. Pro-independence groups like the Puerto Rican Independence Party, National Hostos Congress, Socialist Front, and the Revolutionary Workers Party (Macheteros) participated, as did a group of fishermen and a gay rights organization.

Of the 6,000 union members at the telephone company, only 28 crossed the picket line. The participation rate was very high among other utility workers as well.

There were no classes at any of the 11 campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. At the main campus in the Río Piedras section of San Juan, an all-night concert mobilized students to block access to the campus. The next day many students marched downtown to join the protest.

According to the Department of Education, 76 percent of public school students were absent October 1. Renán Soto, president of the Teachers Federation, put the figure at 96 percent. Thousands of teachers from both the Teachers Federation and the Teachers Association participated in the march even though they had been threatened with being fired.

At the Metropolitan Bus Authority only 6 of 120 drivers were working.

María Luisa Escobar is a telephone operator with six years experience who traveled to the rally from Mayaguez. She is a member of the Independent Union of Telephone Employees (UIET). She said that so many people were at the march because "they [the government] are trying to sell everything."

Doris Arroyo, a social worker at the Mental Health Center in Carolina, a suburb of San Juan, is not a member of a union. She wore a ribbon that said, "Because the children are first, no to privatization." This slogan mocks the Department of Education slogan "Our Children First." "The health centers are in danger of being privatized," said Arroyo. "The telephone company is our national patrimony. They are in danger like us. We can see the cost of privatization in our center. With privatization the working class will have still less resources." The public hospital in Fajardo was closed after the government was unable to privatize it.

The demonstrators assembled on the Dos Hermanos bridge and marched to the capitol, where a rally was held. The main speaker was UIET President Alfonso Benítez, who called on the governor to organize a referendum to vote on the proposed sale of the telephone company.

The day after the march, some of the participants faced reprisals. The president of the Government Development Bank, Marcos Rodríguez, is in charge of the committee that is selling the telephone company. The bank workers had recently struck for a month. About 138 workers were given two-day suspensions without pay for being absent the day of the march. María Rodríguez, president of the union said that this violates the published norms of the bank, which call for suspensions only after the fourth unexcused absence.

The Department of Education announced that 7,715 teachers who were absent will not be paid for the day.

Rosselló has announced that the march will not change his plans to sell the telephone company.

"I don't believe that the government will change because, as everyone knows, they are stubborn as mules," said electrical worker Orlando Díaz at the rally. "Nevertheless we also know that, at times, that mules can change with the force of sticks."

The general strike marks the second time in seven years that the trade union movement has organized mass protests against selling the telephone company. When former governor Rafael Hernández Colón tried to sell the telephone company in 1990, the unions called a similar-sized march.

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