Leading up to the talks, the strikers had organized a series of mobilizations to press their demands, while the authorities ratcheted up the use of police force against the workers.

The water workers walked out October 4, for the first time since 1974, to demand higher wages and oppose other measures by the state-run authority. AAA is demanding the union turn over control of workers’ health insurance to a private company and cut the number of full-time UIA representatives and their time spent on union business.

On November 23 striking workers from throughout the island, visible in their green union shirts, traveled to Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan. It was a large show of force as they marched, picketed, and demonstrated at several major intersections in the city, slowing down the regular flow of traffic. Cops attacked workers from Mayagüez and Bayamón who had gathered at one thoroughfare, the Baldorioty de Castro expressway. A group of cops on motorcycles injured one worker in the head. Then a “Tactical Operations Unit” arrived and drove the workers out of the street and up against a wall, injuring several severely enough to be sent to the hospital.

The mobilizations that day ended in a march and car caravan that proceeded on Fernández Juncos Avenue.

While negotiations proceeded, newspapers claimed agreements on major sections of the contract had been hammered out between UIA and management. These allegedly included a reorganization of the union-run health plan that would involve electing a new board of directors for the plan and having an administrator not affiliated with the union.

The health insurance plan for the water workers has been paid for by the company but administered by the union. After a government audit claimed the union had mismanaged the funds, AAA stopped payments to the union-run plan and contracted the Triple-S private health insurance company to replace it. Strikers said this company has a history of offering generous coverage to attract new customers and then reducing benefits down the road. Many workers said that union control of the medical plan makes it harder for management to raise deductibles in the future.

The government has used the corruption charges against UIA to launch a grand jury investigation of nine union leaders, raid the union offices with FBI and IRS agents, raid the homes of union leaders, and threaten the possible arrest and indictment of UIA officers. The big-business press has kept up a steady flow of articles charging workers with committing sabotage and publicizing a chorus of calls by politicians and others urging the workers to go back to work, with the promise that a contract would eventually be worked out.

Now Puerto Rico’s governor, Sila Calderon, has added her voice to claim AAA’s last offer is “final and firm.” She urged workers to accept it and head back to work, saying they will have a better holiday if they do. The government authority’s last offer included a bonus of $1,800, if workers return on the job.

Upon learning that the bosses had ended the talks with the union December 1, workers marched over to La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion, where she was appearing for a ceremony to light the holiday decorations. They interrupted the festivities with union chants.

The bosses now say they will implement their final offer, beginning with whoever returns to work.

Before management left the table, the union and the bosses had not reached agreement on the number of full-time union delegates allowed, whether a previously existing clause in the contract that allowed workers some right to take job actions without being immediately fired would be maintained, or on a guarantee of no reprisals against strikers. No agreement had been reached on the proposed wages either.

The Water and Sewer Authority management has pleaded poverty, saying AAA is running on a $200 million deficit and cannot give any substantial raises.

“Over six and half years they are offering a raise… that amounts to $61.54 a month,” said UIA president Héctor René Lugo, “something we are not going to accept.”  
 
 
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