Teacher and Utility Unions on the State of the Puerto Rican Labor Movement After Maria and Governor Rossello's Plans to Privatize the Public Power Company and Schools
with 
Fredyson Martinez Estevez, Vice- President of the Irrigation & Electrical Workers Union, Unión de Trabajadores de la Industria Eléctrica y Riego,
and
Mercedes Martínez Padilla, President of the Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico/Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of people are still reeling from the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria. In a time of such dire need, the Trump administration has failed to provide the support needed to restore water to 7% of Puerto Rican residents and power to the nearly one in three residents, paving the way for a catastrophic announcement. The decision to privatize Puerto Rico’s state-owned power company which follows the same dangerous path mapped out in the Trump administration’s draft infrastructure
plan.

Whether it’s water or energy, privatization helps Wall Street at the expense of the well being and health of communities, particularly low-income families and people of color. Trump's leaked infrastructure plan similarly provides a blueprint for handing over public land and public water to Wall Street. It seeks to privatize local water systems and other critical public services, prioritizing
limited federal dollars to Wall Street and corporate investors. This scheme would also sell off federal assets and create a new infrastructure fund by opening up federal lands and waters to mineral and energy development benefiting the oil and gas industry.

We’ll speak with representatives of public sector unions in Puerto Rico representing teachers and utility workers about Governor Rossello's plans to privatize their services, and about challenges faced by the labor movement and workers following hurricane Maria and they’ll discuss labor issues affecting those unions under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA)

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Fighting the Debt Crisis in Puerto Rico
with
Antonio Carmona Reis, social science professor at the University of Puerto Rico, and a militant with the Association of University Professors and a pro-independence activist.

Puerto Rico has a poverty rate approaching 50 percent, and a public debt that amounts to over $20,000 dollars per inhabitant.  With its poverty rate, more than double that of the United States’ poorest state Mississippi Puerto Rico had serious long-term economic problems that, like its current massive public debt, have been historically papered over.  Most of the media attention on Puerto Rico’s debt has focused on technical issues relating to the solvency of municipal bonds and austerity measures. Ignored is the history of how U.S. policies have resulted in more than three and a half million Puerto Ricans being affected by its colonial status.

The bottom line is that Puerto Rico is the United States’ colony, that it decided to take by force 117 years ago, and has since treated like a resented orphan it has consistently undernourished politically and economically.  Puerto Rico’s current fiscal crisis is, in this sense, really a crisis of American colonial policies.    

Meanwhile amidst the poverty and debt, the hedge fund vultures and Wall Street banks and lawyers are circling Puerto Rico.  They, are, sensing a fiscal death spiral they can feed off and care little about the consequences for millions of residents as they manipulate a financial system devoid of any social conscience.  The board appointed to oversee Puerto Rico’s debt restructuring is turning the island’s recession into a depression, of a magnitude seldom seen around the world.  Unemployment, already at 12.4 percent, is soaring. The plan, which puts the creditors’ interests above those of the island’s economy and people, has created a debt/death spiral and growing resistance to it by Puerto Ricans who are suffering under its yoke. 

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https://archive.org/details/BuildingBridgesFightingTheDebtCrisisInPuertoRico 

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Massive Demonstrations in Puerto Rico
as Teachers Union Fights Austerity
with
Mercedes Martinez, Pres., Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico
(“FMPR”)

With the rejection by Congress of any meaningful measure for debt relief despite the current deadline for almost $1 billion in debt payment due on January 1st, and amidst wealthy investors squeezing the cash-starved Island, unions in Puerto Rican are bracing for any eventuality, from massive layoffs to and including the possibly of a government shutdown.  A general strike is one of the responses being discussed by the FMPR, one of the most militant unions in Puerto Rico.  On November 17, 2015 the FMPR led a highly successful one day strike against the colonial government's brutal austerity program, and escalating attacks on hard earned workers’ rights, including pensions and retiree medical benefits and efforts to privatize the school system. The FMPR’s most recent action, just thus this past week was a civil disobedience activity at the Department of Treasury, against a pay cut in the form of denial of a Christmas bonus due to all public workers. While the colonial government says Cut Back the FMPR says Fight Back!

Plus
Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis:
Analysis, Alternatives and Solutions
with
Rafael Bernabe, candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico for the Partido del Pueblo Trabajador (PPT) 2012; professor and director of the Federico de Onís Hispanic Studies Center at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras; economist; and who has  published three books including “Puerto Rico: Crisis y Alternativas” 

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Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis:
Analysis, Alternatives and Solutions
withRafael Bernabe, candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico for the Partido del Pueblo Trabajador (PPT) 2012; professor and director of the Federico de Onís Hispanic Studies Center at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras; economist; and who has  published three books including “Puerto Rico: Crisis y Alternativas”

The fiscal situation in Puerto Rico is dismal. Public debt (including that of the central government and public corporations) stands around $73 billion and is roughly equal to Puerto Rico’s GNP. The government’s credit rating has been degraded to junk bond level. Any new credits seem to be available only at truly usurious rates (above 10 percent). Wall Street commentators admit that “It’s been clear for a while that Puerto Rico is going to have to default on its debt” (Bloomberg, 4/9/14). The other side of this coin is the fact that two dozen U.S. corporations  extract around $35 billion a year in profits from or through their operations in Puerto Rico. Bear in mind that the total income of the government of Puerto Rico is around $9 billion. U.S. corporations benefit from the tax-exemption measures that have been the centerpiece of the government’s development policy since 1947.  

We’ll speak with Prof. Bernabe who further details the current economic crisis affecting the island of Puerto Rico, a United States colony.  He’ll speak about the history of Puerto Rico’s economy, the federal and local laws that impact its economy, the current status of  its bonds, and the proposed bankruptcy relief and austerity measures. Prof. Bernabe explains why it’s in the interest of U.S. working people (including, needless to say, the more than four million Puerto Ricans that reside in the United States) to see that Puerto Rico acquires a 

healthy economy that no longer requires major subsidies to dampen
the poverty from which a handful of U.S. corporations profit. Prof.
Bernabe says “the struggles for radical reversal of the dominant
economic and social policies and structures in Puerto Rico and in
the US must advance together. Building alliances and common
proposals with like-minded currents and movements in the US is
indispensable … For those of us who are independentistas and
socialists, and thus, internationalists, such collaboration is essential
now and will remain so after independence. The fact that these
movements are still minority forces in both the US and Puerto Rico
makes it all the more urgent that those seeking to build them join
forces and collaborate.” 

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