I am in a bit of a hurry
and will soon be unable to have a signal. I got this appeal from Mercedes
Martinez in Puerto Rico and read it quickly. I encourage all allies in the trade
union movement and all workers to read it and respond. Mercedes can be reached
at: mercedesmartinez452@gmail.com
if you want to know more details. I am going to be out of action for a few
hours. Richard Mellor
To all my Facebook peeps in the US, I need your help to please send this
message to your local IBEW chapter. Imagine that the government decides to
unilaterally change existing laws in order to nullify your collective
bargaining agreement and disband your local electrical utility union by
assigning you and your fellow electrical utility workers to instead work on
other government agencies as security officers, heavy vehicle drivers,
messengers and other non-electrical related fields.
Imagine that whilst
you are being displaced, demoted and degraded, and while the issue is being
handled in Court, the incoming electric utility concessionaire instead of
simply willing to even recognize the local electrical workers union, decides to
call upon another electric workers’ union to work as #scabs.
This may sound like fiction. But it is happening right now to Puerto Rico's local
electric utility union, #UTIER. Where in the process of privatizing the public
utility, the government literally changed the laws in order to annul our
Collective Bargaining agreement, and allow the newly created private company
LUMA, composed of Quanta and ATCO, to not recognize our local union and instead
try to pick out and hire workers individually for less than our current
benefits and start from scratch for we lose our retirement plan.
Imagine that after 20 years of electric utility service, your local government
rigs the privatizing negotiations to have your retirement plan collapse,
meaning that you'd have to start over when no longer in your prime, and are
forced between being transferred and demoted or joining a company that doesn't
want to recognize your union, nor your collective bargaining contract, nor your
seniority, nor your benefits, nor your retirement and calls in another union to
bring in the scabs.
I never imagined the IBEW would ever do the shameful work of playing
scab-trader and be part of the scheme to dismantle a fellow electrical utility
union. I know honorable, hard working IBEW union workers would reject playing
the role of a scab.
So I must assume you are being misled by your leadership, who are shamefully
misleading its members into working as scabs and being treated as scabs, in an
environment that will be unsafe for them, as the conditions are brewing for an
all out statewide strike and working class war.
I call for your union members' solidarity and to reject being scabs. (See the
links, some are in Spanish so have your browser ready to translate the Spanish
links, and/or visit and browse through pictures, videos and articles in the
page La Verdad sobre LUMA Energy, i.e. the Truth behind LUMA Energy, link
provided below) (The Truth Behind LUMA Energy)
https://m.facebook.com/La-Verdad-sobre-LUMA-energy-110692184130868/?refid=52&__tn__=C-R
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/luma-rejects-mounting-criticism-of-puerto-rico-grid-operating-contract-see/586888/
https://www.periodicolaperla.com/conmemoran-el-dia-de-los-trabajadores-exigiendo-la-cancelacion-del-leonino-contrato-de-luma/
https://twitter.com/robagaco/status/1389242548389089280?s=19
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