Workers in Puerto Rico resist attacks by US, colonial rulers

Vol. 82/No. 17 - April 30, 2018

We’ve done the Band-Aid,” Mike Byrne, Puerto Rico coordinator for the U.S. rulers’ Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the press in early April. “We’ve patched the [electrical] system back together.” Some patch! At least 100,000 people are still without power…


Puerto Rico unionists resist attacks on working people

Vol. 82/No. 15 - April 16, 2018
Puerto Rico unionists resist attacks on working people

Unionists protest in San Juan March 26 against anti-worker measures pushed by Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. His labor “reform” bill would over time cut sick and vacation days in half for private and public workers, lengthen probation for new…


‘We’ll protest until all the lights are on in Puerto Rico’

Vol. 82/No. 9 - March 5, 2018
‘We’ll protest until all the lights are on in Puerto Rico’

More than 200 residents of Aguas Buenas and nearby towns marched outside Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s central offices in San Juan Feb. 12. They sang, “We come from Aguas Buenas to let you know, if the light doesn’t come…


US rulers tell Puerto Rico: Squeeze working people to pay off bonds!

Vol. 82/No. 7 - February 19, 2018

Hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers in Puerto Rico are still without electricity five months after Hurricane Maria. Damaged schools remain unrepaired across the island. Tens of thousands of homes have no roofs. And thousands of jobs have evaporated.…


Oscar López: ‘Crisis in Puerto Rico is colonialism’

Vol. 82/No. 7 - February 19, 2018
Oscar López: ‘Crisis in Puerto Rico is colonialism’

NEW YORK — Some 100 people attended a meeting at Hostos Community College in the Bronx here with Puerto Rican independence fighter Oscar López Rivera Feb. 1. Asked what he saw in Puerto Rico when he returned there after serving…


Protests answer article pushing Jew-hatred in Puerto Rico

Vol. 82/No. 5 - February 5, 2018

After a barrage of criticism, El Nuevo Día,Puerto Rico’s largest circulation daily, removed from its website the Jan. 8 anti-Semitic article by columnist Wilda Rodríguez titled “What Does the ‘Jew’ Want With the Colony.” In the column Rodríguez repeated the…


Puerto Rico teachers union leaders tour New York

Vol. 82/No. 5 - February 5, 2018

NEW YORK — “Puerto Rico has been in crisis since the 1970s, but it has gotten worse since 2006” when the worldwide capitalist economic crisis deepened, Edwin Morales Laboy, vice president of the Puerto Rico Teachers Federation, said at a…


San Juan paper under fire for promoting anti-Semitic article

Vol. 82/No. 4 - January 29, 2018

The owners and editors of El Nuevo Día — the largest circulation daily in Puerto Rico — came under fire for printing an anti-Semitic article by columnist Wilda Rodríguez Jan. 8 titled, “What Does the ‘Jew’ Want with the Colony?”…


Puerto Rican protests say, ‘Stop abuse of the poor’

Vol. 82/No. 3 - January 22, 2018

“The upper and middle class neighborhoods are getting electricity restored, but most poorer neighborhoods don’t have light,” Rufino Carrión told the Militant by phone Jan. 6 from Gurabo in the center of Puerto Rico. A few days before, Carrión, a pastor at…


Protests in Puerto Rico: 1 million plus still without power

Vol. 82/No. 2 - January 15, 2018
Protests in Puerto Rico: 1 million plus still without power

Anger is rising in the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico over the slow pace of government efforts to restore electricity and other basic necessities more than three months after hurricanes Maria and Irma. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority admitted…