The Socialist Workers campaign condemns the blatant strikebreaking raid by FBI and IRS agents on the hall of the water workers union in Puerto Rico.

We call on the labor movement and all working people in the United States to join with our Puerto Rican sisters and brothers in telling the U.S. government: hands off the unions!

In the midst of a hard-fought strike for a contract by the Independent Authentic Union (UIA) against the Puerto Rican government’s Water and Sewer Authority (AAA), 60 FBI cops and IRS agents raided the union headquarters October 20 under the cover of investigating accusations of “health-care fraud” and corruption by UIA union officials. It is under this same pretext that the water authority has demanded that the union turn over control of the workers’ medical insurance program to a private outfit. The cops occupied the union headquarters for 15 hours, detained and interrogated union members while denying them access to attorneys, and carted off hundreds of boxes of union files. They are now floating the idea of a grand jury investigation, whose purpose would be to frame up UIA members and smear the union.

In a previous antilabor attack, FBI agents showed up at the UIA headquarters August 26 to “investigate” alleged statements by union president Héctor Lugo that the UIA might take part in a protest at the airport, and to warn that blocking the airport, as the Puerto Rican labor movement did during the 1998 general strike, would be considered a “terrorist” act and a violation of the reactionary Patriot Act. On October 6 FBI officials made further threats, insinuating that UIA members were planning “sabotage” against Puerto Rico’s water supply.

These actions reveal the fact that the FBI and other U.S. political police agencies are enemies of the working class and act to serve and protect the bosses. The FBI raids against the union show that the real purpose of the Patriot Act and other “homeland security” measures is to lay the groundwork for using government police agencies and U.S. armed forces to target unions resisting the employer offensive and others who oppose Washington’s policies.

If the U.S. government and its political police get away with this attack, they will be emboldened to go after other unions in Puerto Rico. If unanswered, this attack can have similar repercussions in the United States. The Puerto Rican labor and pro-independence movements are very familiar with FBI spying and disruption operations, which were widely exposed after the 1978 Cerro Maravilla affair, in which the police entrapment and murder of two pro-independence youth implicated U.S. police agencies. It was later revealed that the local police, in collaboration with the FBI, had secret files on more than 100,000 Puerto Rican unionists, independence advocates, antiwar protesters, and others.

The U.S. labor movement has plenty of experience with the use of racketeering and “fraud” charges as a cover for government intervention in union affairs. Such moves are an attack on the right of the union ranks to choose their own leadership and control their union, and should be unconditionally protested by labor and other supporters of workers’ rights.

The FBI’s war on the Puerto Rican unions, independence movement, and other social struggles underscores the reality that Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony. A successful struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico is in the interests not only of the Puerto Rican people but of the vast majority of the people of the United States. We have common interests and a common enemy: the wealthy U.S. rulers and their government in Washington. Every struggle against U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico, such as the fight to free all Puerto Rican political prisoners and the successful movement to get the U.S. Navy out of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, reinforces the struggles of working people in the United States.

FBI, IRS hands off the Independent Authentic Union! Solidarity with the water workers strike! Free all Puerto Rican political prisoners! Independence for Puerto Rico!
 
 
Related articles:
Puerto Rico: FBI raids union hall of striking water workers  
 
 
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