BY RON RICHARDS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - On Thanksgiving morning the front page of the Spanish language daily El Nuevo Día quoted the governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rosselló, explaining what he had to give thanks for. In the inside of the paper there was an article about the 500 sugar industry workers who had received their layoff notices the day before. The layoffs are a result of the Rosselló administration's campaign to sell off government-owned assets.

For 30 years the sugar mills of Puerto Rico have been owned by the government, while the land that the cane was grown on was held by private individuals. On December 31, the last two sugar mills in Puerto Rico - Coloso in Aguada and Roig in Yabucoa - will be sold to an association of capitalist growers set up by the government. For now, the government will continue to run Merecedita in Ponce - the only plant where raw sugar is refined into white sugar. Eventually it too will be sold to the growers. The sugar industry in Puerto Rico produces 28,000 tons per year, 50 percent of the consumption in this colony.

Jobs in the Puerto Rican sugar industry typically pay $5 - 6 per hour, and many last only for the harvest. Most but not all of the workers are expected to be rehired by the new owners of the mills, but the bosses plan to push for lower wages and worse working conditions.

"Most of the workers will be back after January 1 to keep working for us," but not all, said Carlos Bouet, chairman of the board of the Corporación Central Roig and a sugar plantation owner. "The government might have had use for some workers they thought were needed under their operations, but we can't keep them under our plans."

"I understand that the relations between the unions and the growers can be difficult," said Sugar Corporation advisor Duhamel Zayas. "Because the Sugar Corporation never made money and the growers have to negotiate and convince the unions that they cannot maintain the same benefits that the government had.... The unions won very favorable contracts," Zayas continued. "But these were very costly to the government. There are costs of fringe benefits and vacations that the growers cannot sustain. The unions need to be realistic."

"The benefits such as vacations and paid holidays for workers like tractor drivers who work only 80 days in the harvest, we cannot honor that," said Yabucoa grower José Ortiz.

"Many of my co-workers did not expect a blow like this," said Osvaldo Cruz, a worker with 22 years in the Coloso mill. "They told us that during the privatization we would continue working and that nobody would be let go."

"It is bad faith on the part of the government to deliver documents like this on the day before Thanksgiving," said Román Vélez Mangual, president of the Labor Confederation of Puerto Rico, which organizes the workers at the Coloso mill. "Under the contract, this is a forced closure and we will put up a fight."

The layoffs in the sugar industry are only another round in the ongoing fight in Puerto Rico around privatization of government-owned corporations such as telephone, water, electricity, agro-industry and hotels. The Puerto Rican and municipal governments are also privatizing services such as garbage collection and health care. In the last year there have been hundreds of pickets and protests involving many diverse organizations. The largest activity was the October 1 national strike that drew 100,000 people.  
 
 
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