MORE-NYC Stands Against the AFT’s Colonial Unionism in Puerto Rico

Introduction:
This summer the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced another lousy deal that, if passed, will decimate educators’ already abysmally low pensions in Puerto Rico. The AFT has been partnering in secret with the federally appointed and dictatorial Financial Oversight and Management Board—or la junta, as it is known in Puerto Rico—for quite some time. As a union, the AFT should be standing up to the junta and rejecting the logic of neoliberalism, which will make workers pay for Puerto Rico’s illegal and illegitimate debt. Unfortunately, the AFT chose to work with the junta and negotiate away workers’ rights in service of their own narrow interests as a colonial union in Puerto Rico.

 

Two years ago, a similar deal was rejected by Puerto Rican educators as the result of a hard-fought “Vote No” campaign waged by rank-and-filers, retirees and their allies. Today, the widely-opposed proposal is likely to go down in defeat again, but Puerto Rican educators and retirees need solidarity. As opposed to the last election in which there were outside observers stationed to ensure that the elections were conducted fairly and without bias, this time the voting will be entirely controlled by the AFT/AMPR and no observers will be allowed in voting sites. Educators in the US who are members of the AFT need to know what the union is doing in our name so that we can raise our voices against it. Mercedes Martinez. Sister Martinez is President of the Puerto Rican Teachers Union (FMPR)

September 18, 2021 

Reprinted from Movement of Rank and File Educators *

Puerto Rican Educators to Vote on the Future of their Pensions - Versión en Español aquí.

This summer the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced another lousy deal that, if passed, will decimate educators’ already abysmally low pensions in Puerto Rico. The AFT has been partnering in secret with the federally appointed and dictatorial Financial Oversight and Management Board—or la junta, as it is known in Puerto Rico—for quite some time. As a union, the AFT should be standing up to the junta and rejecting the logic of neoliberalism, which will make workers pay for Puerto Rico’s illegal and illegitimate debt. Unfortunately, the AFT chose to work with the junta and negotiate away workers’ rights in service of their own narrow interests as a colonial union in Puerto Rico.  

Two years ago, a similar deal was rejected by Puerto Rican educators as the result of a hard-fought “Vote No” campaign waged by rank-and-filers, retirees and their allies. Today, the widely-opposed proposal is likely to go down in defeat again, but Puerto Rican educators and retirees need solidarity. As opposed to the last election in which there were outside observers stationed to ensure that the elections were conducted fairly and without bias, this time the voting will be entirely controlled by the AFT/AMPR and no observers will be allowed in voting sites. Educators in the US who are members of the AFT need to know what the union is doing in our name so that we can raise our voices against it. From September 23-27, educators in Puerto Rico will be voting to preserve their hard-earned pensions and we in the US can raise our voices in solidarity: An injury to one is an injury to all! 

Myths and realities about the American Federation of Teachers involvement in the Puerto Rico bankruptcy proceedings:

Myth #1: The AFT is fighting to defend educators’ rights in Puerto Rico.

According to AFT President Randi Weingarten, the AFT and its local affiliate in Puerto Rico, the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR), are negotiating to defend workers rights and public education in Puerto Rico. But the agreement that the AFT/AMPR is proposing will change the education workers' current contract for the worse, not the better. If passed, the agreement will increase the retirement age from 55 to 63, significantly lower educators’ retirement salaries, and eliminate the pensions of active and future educators by turning them into 401(k)s. As Mercedes Martinez, the president of the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico at the time of the AFT’s 2019 attempt to change the contract, said, “What type of negotiation is it where the so-called union accepts the elimination and undermining of teachers’ existing rights? It’s not a negotiation, it’s a betrayal.” 

Myth #2: The AFT has no choice but to deal with the junta.

The junta is an unaccountable and undemocratic entity working in the interests of the vulture capitalists who saddled Puerto Rico with an illegal debt burden that can never be repaid. The junta is similar to the International Monetary Fund. It serves the interests of big business by making Puerto Rican workers pay for a debt they aren’t responsible for, through austerity measures that would condemn them to decades of misery. Educators do not have a labor contract with the junta; they have a contract with the government of Puerto Rico, specifically the Department of Education. Unions in PR have no obligation to deal or negotiate with the junta, and some unions have refused to do so on democratic principle. As the currently recognized exclusive representative of educators in PR, the AFT/AMPR has no obligation to negotiate with the junta. They chose to do so.

Myth #3: The AFT has a moral obligation to negotiate educators’ pensions with the junta.

The government of Puerto Rico has a legally binding contract with the educators of Puerto Rico. This contract includes pension plans that were a part of the workers’ conditions of employment. When the government of Puerto Rico signed these contracts, they made economic and social commitments to their employees. These commitments impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. No one, especially a union which is supposed to represent the best interests of workers, should go behind the backs of its members and around the government of Puerto Rico to undermine this commitment. If the AFT has any moral obligation, it should be to honor and defend public-sector pensions in the face of a severe economic crisis. 

Myth #3: The AFT is involved in good faith negotiations with the junta. 

When workers’ organizations engage in negotiations with their bosses for better wages and working conditions, they negotiate their contracts and terms of employment. They have the power to do this because the workers have united to collectively assert their will over the employers. When the AFT/AMPR choose to negotiate with the junta in secret and without any mechanisms for accountability, they undermine the collective power of the workers, as well as the contracts and commitments agreed upon by the union and the government of Puerto Rico. By attempting to pass an agreement with the junta that is so bad for workers, the AFT/AMPR gives tacit legitimacy to an institution and a debt that should be opposed by a fighting labor movement. By agreeing to a plan with the junta that would push workers deeper into poverty in Puerto Rico, the AFT/AMPR is partnering with the very undemocratic organization whose purpose is to steamroller the labor movement in Puerto Rico. As a US-based organization engaged in these practices, the AFT is participating in the colonial subjugation of the educators of Puerto Rico to the will of the junta. 

Myth #4 This deal is in the best interest of educators and retirees in PR. 

If passed, this agreement will sign away pensions in exchange for a $3,000 “recognition payment,” which will be dispersed to each member of the union “for the purpose of recognizing the outstanding service of the teachers of Puerto Rico and their importance to Puerto Rico’s future and acknowledging the challenges resulting from the freeze of the teachers’ [pensions].” The language of the agreement itself recognizes that the freezing of educators’ pensions will cause hardship for the already extremely underpaid educators of Puerto Rico. Simply put, the AFT is agreeing to cashing in the pensions of educators to pay down illegitimate debt, in exchange for $3,000 per member. This bribe is not in the best interest of educators or their families, to say the least. But it does serve the interest of the vulture capitalists and their allies in Washington and San Juan. In the process, the AFT is positioning itself as a “viable partner” with the junta in the hope of maintaining its lucrative position as the exclusive representative of Puerto Rican educators. While this agreement will further impoverish Puerto Rican educators, it will line the pockets of the AFT/AMPR with dues payments and guaranteed government subsidies, in the form of payments into the union’s health care system for all members of the union.

Myth #5: There is no alternative to public-sector pension cuts in PR.

According to the logic of neoliberalism, there is no alternative to cutting educator pensions in Puerto Rico. The AFT/AMPR’s style of business unionism accepts this logic and seeks to manage it, negotiate it and sell the results as the lesser evil.  But there is an alternative. The alternative is class struggle unionism: Educators and public-sector workers have been fighting for years to defend their pensions, and they have been successful. Under pressure from popular opinion, which supports maintaining public-sector pensions, as well as sustained struggle in the streets, the Puerto Rican legislature and conservative governor Pedro Pierluisi passed legislation in June that protects pensions. Law 7, the Law for a Dignified Retirement, was developed and advanced by a coalition of independent and local unions, as well as groups and coalitions that are organizing to cancel the debt. The AFT’s announced deal with the junta undermines this effort, just at a moment when the junta is trying to dismiss it. This has created a situation in which the AFT/AMPT is acting to directly undermine the hard-won victories of the labor and social movements in Puerto Rico and, by extension, the autonomy and self-determination of the country itself. The Puerto Rican uprising of 2019—known as “el verano combativo”—that brought down the governorship of Ricardo Roselló reminded the world of the slogan that “When we fight, we can win.” Now we have to remind the AFT of this. 

*Facts For Working People is Not Affiliated With MORE 

Puerto Rico: AFT Leadership Agrees To Further Attacks on Educators

2017: Puerto Rico teachers demand the reopening of closed schools

 

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444,retied
GED/HEO

 

In 2016, the US Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Part of the Act was the creation of the Federal Oversight Board to manage Puerto Rico’s debt crisis The scenario is very similar to the IMF’s Structural Adjustments Programs it imposes on developing nations that become so overwhelmed by debt they can’t function. Structural adjustment’s are actually austerity programs; cut public services, public spending, wages benefits and so on. If they refuse due to social pressure perhaps, there will be a strike of capital and other resources by foreign investors.

 

Like these Structural Adjustment programs, Puerto Rico’s Federal Oversight Board has immense power backed by US Congress and its goal is to shift the burden of capitalist crisis on to the backs of Puerto Rico’s workers and the poor. Puerto Rico’s public sector is a major target and there have been huge struggles against this imposed austerity by teachers in particular. The Oversight board has the authority over “the prompt enforcement of any applicable laws of the covered territory prohibiting public sector employees from participating in a strike or lockout”. It’s clear to even the most casual observer that the US Congress sees Puerto Rico just like any other colonial possession.

 

Over 40% of PR’s labor force is unionized and teachers have been in the forefront of the resistance to the Oversight Board’s aggressive austerity agenda. Back in 2018 as teachers’ in West Virginia, Arizona and other Right to Work States were showing how strikes can be won, members of the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union (FMPR) were brutalized by police as they protested school closures, layoffs, cuts in pensions.

 

The FMPR has some 5000 members as the government decertified the FMPR after they struck in 2008 and removed members. They disaffiliated from the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO) back in 2005. The Puerto Rico Teachers Association Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, (AMPR) is the remaining AFT affiliate.

 

Mercedes Martinez is the president of the independent FMPR and reported today that the AFT/AMPR is in negotiations with the Oversight Board and “bargained to cut teachers pensions and increase retirement age to 63.”

 

She has appealed to members of the AFT affiliate and members of the AFT throughout the US to “stand with teachers in Puerto Rico and call out on Randi Weingarten and her treason to our teachers.”  

 

Treason

Facts For Working People encourages our readers to help in any way you can. However, what sister Mercedes refers to as “treason” is the norm among the leadership of organized labor. We saw it in the Machinists dispute with Boeing a few years ago. It occurs in the UAW, the ILWU, the Teamsters. Randi Weingarten is no different to any other president of a national union and you can bet your bottom dollar that the AFT Executive Council is on board with this betrayal; you have to be “realistic” is the usual refrain. It’s a euphemism for concessions.

 

The entire leadership of organized labor supports the Team Concept, the view that workers and bosses’ interests are the same; we’re on the same team. So when capitalism goes in to crisis like it is and has in PR, they move to bail it out and naturally, the dues paying member pays the price in reduced wages benefits and/or jobs.  We must reject this philosophy if we are to turn the tide as Sister Martinez and the Puerto Rican Teachers Union has. But they need help.

Back in 2017, AFT President Randi Weingarten and the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico President Aida Díaz de Rodriguez sent a letter to the Oversight Board informing them of the, “harmful impact of the deep education cuts over the past decade and the devastating consequences additional proposed reductions would have on students and Puerto Rico’s future.” They even invited the board to come to the schools and, “see firsthand how the cuts have affected Puerto Rico’s schools and children.”

 

Are we expected to think that these top labor officials actually think the members of this capitalist austerity board do not know the effect their policies will have on their victims? That’s an insult.

 

As they always do, in efforts to cover their asses, Weingarten added, “We are standing in solidarity with teachers in Puerto Rico as they demand an end to the destructive cuts that their education system has endured.”

 

Well, that didn’t have too much of an impact as she is now agreeing to further attacks on her members living standards

 

But she is “standing with solidarity” with them as she does it you see.

 

We can have our position on whether a union should disaffiliate or stay when it comes to the point where we cannot continue to go backwards and the leadership appears so entrenched. But we cannot avoid  a fight; the bosses' won't allow it. All workers, union or not should support a union and leaders like Sister Martinez that are willing to go on the offensive.

 

Sister Martinez is asking members of AFT/AMPR to vote no on this agreement that would be crucial as a yes vote would undermine all workers in PR And if other AFT members are able to, introduce a solidarity statement with the teachers in Puerto Rico to your local or write one individually.

 

But that alone is not enough. Sister Martinez and others in the leadership of the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union clearly have a more militant approach and rather than write a letter here or a phone call there, have looked to the power of the rank and file and direct action as opposed to class collaboration. We can use the courts but we can’t rely on them. There were significant struggles in Puerto Rico between unionized truckers and the Oversight Board recently as well; as the old saying goes, An Injury to One is and Injury to All

 

Randi Weingarten and “her” executive board as that’s probably what it is, will not be swayed by appeals to decency, but they can be moved if the members of the AFT Affiliate in PR vote no and significant numbers of AFT members in the mainland make it clear they will not sit idly by and allow it.

An Appeal from Mercedes Martinez in Puerto Rico

Brothers, sisters, comrades,

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

 

La Verdad sobre LUMA energy

Social Service

A message from Puerto Rico

Received this from a friend. I do not or cannot verify its authenticity although I have connections in Puerto Rico and will talk with them. My inclination is that the brother is spot on.

Puerto Rico: Mass movement brings down corrupt capitalist Governor .

 Trump can also fall to a mass movement.

Sean O' Torain

We print below an article from the World Socialist Website (WSWS).  Facts For Working People and this Blog has no affiliation with WSWS.

Puerto Ricans celebrate their victory in bringing down governor.

The importance of the events in Puerto Rico is they show that a mass movement can bring down a government. This is also true for the USA. A mass movement can bring down Trump and any US government which represents US capitalism. 

It should be the aim of every organization and individual who oppose the capitalist politician and predator in the White House to help build such a mass movement in the USA. The same would apply to state governors. The teachers'/educators movements as well as organized labor united with unorganized workers have the same potential power.

One reason the capitalist Democratic Party leadership are so hesitant to go after Trump is they want to keep the institutions that they have established to maintain the rule of capitalism intact. Another reason is they fear a mass movement might be triggered if they took bringing down Trump seriously. The lesson for socialists and activists and especially the DSA, is to break from the Democratic Party, stop supporting Sanders, and mobilize our 60,000 plus members to turn to the movements that are taking place against the attacks on workers living standards, against racism against sexism against climate change etc. DSA has the resources to help draw these together into a coalition against Trump, against the US capitalist class, and to build a mass movement. It is through such a movement that candidates can be put forward as the alternative to  those from the two capitalist parties

Part of this process should be DSA turning to union locals and workplaces and moving motions to ask the union membership to be part of this coalition. Out of this, a mass workers' political party can be built.  This is the way to bring down Trump as opposed to simply replacing him with other capitalist politicians. Such a movement can be the basis on which to build for a democratic socialist USA and democratic socialist world.

Puerto Rico governor resigns after popular protests

By Jerry White
25 July 2019

After two weeks of protests demanding his removal, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló announced his resignation late Wednesday night. In a statement posted online, Rosselló said he would step down on August 2. The announcement was met with cheers by thousands of protesters who gathered outside the governor’s La Fortaleza (The Fortress) residence in the Old San Juan district of the Caribbean island’s capital.

Popular anger has been escalating since the release two weeks ago of private text messages between Rosselló and his inner circle, which mocked the victims of Hurricane Maria and draconian austerity measures imposed by the US federal government’s Fiscal Oversight Board. The protests reached their highpoint Monday with the largest demonstration in the history of the US territory. Between 500,000 and 1 million people participated in the huge procession in San Juan, a substantial portion of the island’s 3.2 million inhabitants.

Analysts suggested that Rosselló spent much of his last day seeking to work out a deal over obtaining a pardon if he is convicted on corruption charges. On Wednesday, attorneys commissioned by the president of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, Carlos Méndez Núñez, a member of Rosselló’s own New Progressive Party (NPP), found five offenses that constitute grounds for impeachment, including the embezzlement of public funds and neglect of his official duties. The state legislature announced it would convene a special session Thursday to begin impeachment proceedings if the governor did not resign.

Because Puerto Rico’s US colonial constitution does not include any provision for a special election, the governorship is being handed over to one of his cabinet officials, Secretary of Justice Wanda Vázquez, a fellow NPP member who has also been embroiled in various charges of unethical behavior.

In November 2018, the Office of the Independent Prosecutor accused her of improperly intervening on behalf of her daughter and son-in-law amidst a housing dispute, making her the first secretary of justice in Puerto Rico’s history to face criminal charges. She was eventually cleared of ethical charges by a judge in a case where Vazquez’s husband, Superior Court Jorge Diaz Reveron, was questioned for allegedly intervening with a potential witness in the failed case.

One of Vázquez’s close allies, Valerie Rodríguez Erazo, the wife of Elías Sánchez, is a “lobbyist” and close friend of Rosselló. According to a July 19 exposé by the Center for Investigative Journalism, Sánchez, who came up with the ranks of the NPP youth movement with Rosselló, helped direct government contracts, including for hurricane relief, to his favored clients, charging them commissions of up to 25 percent of the amount of the contracts and fixed retainers that have reached $50,000 per month.

Like rats jumping off a sinking ship, several high-ranking officials have resigned over the last few weeks, including the governor’s chief of staff who quit Tuesday night. Just days before cabinet officials who previously resigned, Julia Keleher, the former secretary of education, and Angela Avila-Marrero, former head of the health insurance administration, were arrested by the FBI on charges that they inflated contracts and steered them to favored firms.

Keleher, a close ally of Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos, sparked strikes and mass protests by teachers last year for closing 286 schools, laying off 5,000 teachers and expanding charters and other for-profit schools. Treasury Secretary Raul Maldonado also resigned after a federal investigation into the department.

While Trump and Democratic Party presidential candidates distanced themselves from Rosselló, the forced resignation of the MIT-trained politician by a mass movement encompassing large sections of the working class sent paroxysms of fear throughout the entire US political establishment. With no means of expressing their opposition to the looting of society by the corporate and financial elite, masses of workers and young people took to the streets to express their democratic will and social aspirations.

If Rosselló could be removed through such mass action, so could Trump. The last thing the Democrats want is for the events in Puerto Rico to inspire similar action on the US mainland that would threaten the capitalist economic and political order, which the Democrats no less than Trump and the Republicans defend.

As rotten and corrupt as the island’s political establishment is, they are considered petty thieves compared to the Wall Street bondholders and their financial hatchet men who sit on the Fiscal Oversight Board, appointed by President Obama in 2016. Hedge funds like GoldenTree and Baupost Group, the Boston-based hedge fund helmed by billionaire Seth Klarman, hold more than $50 billion in bonds and want to assure that they recover as much of their speculative investments as possible through the gutting of pensions and selloff of public assets like the island’s electrical utility and public school system.

To a certain extent, the social explosion is seen by the political establishment in Puerto Rico as an obstacle to the wholesale looting of the island by major hedge funds. The Fiscal Oversight Board still requires the agreement of the island’s legislature to pass bills to implement the US federal bankruptcy court’s debt-cutting plans.

Earlier this month, the financial overseers struck a deal with creditors, which will include cuts to the pension benefits of 300,000 public sector workers, retirees and their families, many of whom do not qualify for Social Security. Current employees will be shifted into individual retirement accounts tied to the stock market. Puerto Rican teachers voted against the deal, even though the American Federation of Teachers had urged a “yes” vote. Retired teachers will vote after the restructuring plan is introduced in the federal bankruptcy court.

The bondholders are completely unsatisfied and are demanding even more. Over the last several days the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other leading corporate media outlets have expressed the far-fetched hope that the further discrediting of the island’s political establishment would strengthen the hand of the federal bankruptcy court and Fiscal Oversight Board—known on the island as the “La Junta”—making it easier to beat back the resistance of workers to draconian austerity measures.

Last week the Washington Post editorial board complained that the fiscal board’s “effectiveness has been hampered” and that “Congress should take steps to strengthen the board,” including granting it the power to veto measures passed by Puerto Rico’s legislature.

Commenting on the mass protests, Bloomberg News wrote, “The turmoil came just as a federal court judge Wednesday held a hearing in the bankruptcy case that was overshadowed by the administration’s dysfunction, which could create an opening for a federal oversight board to consolidate power and impose deeper budget-cutting measures as part of the more than two-year-old bankruptcy. The political crisis and corruption probes surrounding the administration may undermine opposition to such cuts by strengthening the view that the government is inefficiently run and rife with overspending, potentially freeing up more money for creditors.”

The Oversight Board is “facing a weak government,” Vicente Feliciano, president of Advantage Business Consulting, told the industry publication Bond Buyer. “Thus, it could impose its will as long as it stays within reasonable bounds.” Evercore Director of Municipal Research Howard Cure added, “With the taint surrounding the administration, the board may now feel emboldened to make more unilateral decisions and hope they get the cooperation of the bankruptcy court judge [who] might be less sympathetic to the administration.”

In a statement dripping with hypocrisy, the oversight board released a statement responding to the mass demonstrations, saying, “The people of Puerto Rico deserve a well-functioning, responsive, sustainable government that operates with integrity and transparency.” The statement added that the board hoped that the “political process swiftly resolves the current governance crisis.”

The masses who have taken to the streets, however, are in no mood to accept the dictates of Wall Street. Among the most popular chants are “¡Ricky renuncia y llévate a la junta!” or “Ricky resign and take la junta with you!”

The same financial vultures that are looting Puerto Rico have done the same to Argentina and other countries, along with Detroit and other cities on the mainland US. Financiers have expressed the hope that the bankruptcy restructuring of Puerto Rico will set the precedent for allowing the use of the federal courts to gut public pensions in cash-strapped US states.

The only way the working class in Puerto Rico can break the dictatorial grip of Wall Street is through uniting with workers on the mainland and internationally in common struggle.

Let's Not Forget Puerto Rico. The Russians Didn't Cause This Crisis

From Mercedes Martinez
President: The Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR)

Tonight was a very emotional night. Mothers, teachers and students from different schools around our country ordered to shut down, spoke about the emotional, psychological and physical effects they've faced after these announcements.

It was heartbreaking to hear mothers from poor communities, whose kids are still not enrolled in any school because the ones that remained open are overcrowded and have no room for them.
Knowing that a teacher was suicidal because she was declared as a surplus teacher and ordered to travel by ferry to another city in order to keep her job.

Listening to how children with autism that need a structure and had persevered and accomplished so much are now left without their teacher and a school. A girl who did not speak and did not show affection, and after 3 years passed she spoke words and shows her love, just gets me into tears.
Our legislators, governor, judges, Secretary of education, Control Board and mayors are responsible for this pain. They have stabbed our children's rights to a proper, free and accessible education. Shame on you!!!!!

Thanks Jia Lee and Monique for the solidarity and been here when it counts.

Public Education: Puerto Rico Update

Mercedes Martinez

Dear Comrades,

I write to put you up to date on what has been happening in Puerto Rico.

As you may know, the Oversight Fiscal Board, appointed by the US Congress approved its fiscal plan last April 18, 2018.  I sent it to most of you a couple of weeks ago.  The plan includes:

-305 school closings in this academic year that is about to end 2017-18.  The number has lowered to 265 due to the communities struggle, but the number of schools set to close is extremely high still

In order to fight this back we have gone to public hearings in the Senate, House of Representatives, governor's mansion, protested, rallied, performed civil disobedience, strike on March 19, May 1st, perform community assemblies per school, district and region with all of the community members, elaborated individual and collective plans to fight back.  We have presented proposals including a true educational reform, to those in power.

We have been promoting the boycott of the standardized testing.  This year 25 schools participated and the students opted out.  The communities that opted out were mainly schools set to close:

Luis Muñoz Marín Elementary School, Canovanas- 100% opted out.  This community was on a 5 day strike against the test.

Maria I Dones Elementary School, Fajardo- 39% opted out

Ruiz Belvis Elementary School, San Juan - 80% opted out

Madame Luchetti, San Juan- 75% opted out

Parcelas Aguas Claras, Ceiba- 39% opted out

Lorencita Ramirez, Toa Baja- 35% opted out

Gilberto Concepcion High School, Carolina- 45% opted out

These are some of the schools that participated.  We have to keep working to raise the number, but are doing the work.

This week is crucial for us.  The semester ends and we need to revoke as many school closings as we can and all of your solidarity is more than welcomed.  We would like it if you were able to send a video message of solidarity with the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico and the communities who are fighting back against school closures, budget cuts, charter imposition and vouchers.  Direct your message to our governor Ricardo Rosello, our legislature and our Secretary of Education, Julia Keleher.  Upload the video if you can to youtube and send me the link here in an email.  That way I can share it widely.  You can also write letters to our House of Representaive members, Senate members, governor and Secretary of Education.  You can email them to me and I will make sure they receive them.  Solidarity is a must.

We have plans against charters, they will try to sign contracts with them  by July 2018 this year.  If any of you want to do a video on how charters have affected our community, directed to our parents, teachers and children, Id appreciate it.

We also have a papyal account, as this fight  in defense of public education will not stop until we win it.  If you want to donate to our public education defense fund, here is the link:

https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/84aVxpBqO6

Let us know what has been happening in your community and how can we support your fight.

In solidarity,

Mercedes Martinez
President of the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico
787-320-5534

Here are some views from Fact For Working People on the situation in Puerto Rico and how the present struggles  there and throughout public education can be taken forward and strengthened.

AFL-CIO leaders abandon Puerto Rican workers. 

Teachers Wildcats: Follow West Virginia's Lead 

West Virginia Education Workers Defy Union Tops 

For more reading on education and recent teachers struggles check out the following tabs on the right: Teachers, Public Education 

Puerto Rico Teachers: Message from Mercedes Martinez

Mercedes Martinez, President FMPR

Dear brothers and sisters,

Puerto Rico is facing the biggest attack ever on public education.  Teachers, students and communities are fighting back, but as the semester is near to end, 265 schools remain on the list to be closed for next academic year.  We are requesting that you could take the time and send a video message from your organization and direct it to the Governor of Puerto Rico,  Ricardo Rosello and the Secretary of Education Julia Keleher requesting them to stop the budget cuts in education, school closures and the implementation of charters.  State that you stand with the Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico (Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico) and our communities.  It can be a 1 minute short video, upload it to YouTube and email me the link.  That way we can send it to them directly.  As well you can email our secretary of education and send her a letter requesting her to revoke the school closure implementation.  Her email is keleherj@de.pr.gov or secretariade.jbk@gmail.com.  Her name is Julia Keleher and please send me a copy of the letter so we can post as well in our page.

Thanks in advance

In solidarity,

Mercedes Martinez
President of the FMPR

Here is a short video as requested. It was made quickly.

Here is a video in Spanish Sister Martinez suggested I watch. I will share it here. Sister Martinez says of it: "This is a video of our general assembly in 2008, when thousands of teachers from the Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico voted unanimously for a 10 day strike. It is illegal to strike in PR and we did, got a 14% salary raise then."



There is more information here including a Paypal link if you want to donate.

More news from Puerto Rico

We apologize if the translation is inadequate, we don't speak Spanish and have to rely on Google to translate for us.

From Mercedes Martinez
President: The Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR)

Nos cierran 266 escuelas, nos van a botar a 7,000 maestros, nos van a privatizar el 10% de las escuelas para enriquecerse, van a entregar vales educativos para subvencionar colegios privados con fondos públicos, van a entregar los edificios de nuestras escuelas cerradas al mejor postor por el precio nominal de $1.00 para que abran sus negocios con fines de lucro, van a desplazar y despoblar barrios pobres, mediante el cierre de estos planteles, para de esta forma obligar a la gente a mudarse y construir en esos espacios los proyectos de grandes desarrolladores.

Ahora ofrecerán las pruebas META PR para darle $20 millones a Pearson, mientras por ahorrar $14 millones cierran el 33% de las escuelas. Nos desprestigian el sistema con estas inservibles evaluaciones y piensan penalizar a los educadores para salir de ellos. Esto es lo que nos lega el gobierno de Ricardo Roselló y la Junta de Control Fiscal.

Ante ello, hay maestros que le siguen el juego al Departamento de Educación y ofrecen puntos de bono, pizza, fiestas, camisas a quienes vayan a tomar las pruebas.

Hay maestros que vergonzosamente dejan de dar clase, para estar trabajando con los materiales de las pruebas. ¿Saben qué? Ustedes son parte del problema. ¿Acaso no se han dado cuenta de para qué se utilizan las mismas? Por ahí andan los irresponsables de ABRE-PR catalogando una escuela con notas de A-F por el resultado de una prueba que administran en 1 solo día sin ser confeccionada por sus maestros.

¿Evaluaron ellos las escuelas que están sin maestros nombrados de las materias de las pruebas? ¿Evaluaron cuando nombraron a los mismos? ¿Evaluaron a los estudiantes que el año anterior no tuvieron maestro por lo que vienen con lagunas? ¿Evaluaron el nivel de pobreza y acceso a recursos educativos? ¿Evaluaron las inteligencias múltiples de nuestros jóvenes? Si tu como maestro, ofreces una sola prueba al año para evaluar a los estudiantes de tu curso, eres un fracaso, pero a la hora de evaluar a nuestras escuelas, maestros y niños, así lo hacen. Y me reitero, el personal que se presta para colaborar o intimidar a los niños con susodichas pruebas, son parte del problema.

We close 266 schools, we are going to throw out 7,000 teachers, they will privatize 10 % of schools to enrich themselves, they will deliver educational vouchers to subsidize private schools with public funds, they will deliver the buildings From our schools closed to the highest bidder for the nominal price of $ 1.00 to open their business for profit, they will move and depopulate slums, through the closure of these schools, in order to force people to Move and build the projects of major developers in these spaces.

Now they will offer meta pr tests to give Pearson $ 20 million, while saving $ 14 million close 33 % of schools. We will discredit the system with these useless evaluations and plan to penalize educators to get out of them. This is what the government of Ricardo Roselló and the tax control board will do.

Before that, there are teachers who follow the game to the department of education and offer bonus points, pizza, parties, shirts to those who go to take the tests.

There are teachers who shamelessly stop teaching, to be working with the evidence materials. You know what? You guys are part of the problem. Have they not realized what they are used for? Out there are the irresponsible-PR cataloging a school with an f-notes for the result of a test they manage in 1 only day without being made by their teachers.

Did they evaluate schools that are without teachers who are appointed to test subjects? Did they evaluate when they named them? Did you evaluate the students that the previous year did not have a teacher for what comes with gaps? Did they assess the level of poverty and access to educational resources? Did you evaluate the multiple intelligences of our young people? If you, as a teacher, offer a single test a year to evaluate students of your course, you are a failure, but when assessing our schools, teachers and children, they do. And I repeat, the staff who are provided to collaborate or intimidate children with the above evidence are part of the problem.

AFL-CIO leaders abandon Puerto Rican workers.

by Sean O'Torain

As teachers leader Mercedes Martinez predicted in a previous post, on April 28th,  workers and teacher protests to stop the austerity measures being imposed on them by the undemocratic federally appointed control board, would be met with more police violence and she was right.  The cuts include layoffs and a 10% reduction to the pension system. More details on the austerity package here.

The violent assault on workers and youth, including teachers opposing privatization of education, shifted up a notch earlier this week as protesters took to the  "Golden Mile" banking sector of the island to protest the US Federal oversight board and the Local Government.

What is important to note is the sheer hypocrisy of the US capitalism and its mass media. It is non stop these past weeks in both the right wing and liberal capitalist media about the gassing of people in Syria. The US capitalist media alleges it is the government of Syria gassing and attacking its own people. Well here the government of the US is gassing and attacking people whom they claim are their own people, the people of Puerto Rico. That this violent assault on the Puerto Rican working class comes in the wake of a devastating hurricane that the island has yet to recover from lays bare the racist colonial attitude the US ruling class has when it comes to Puerto Rico.

As this is happening, the leadership of the AFL-CIO union federation does what they always do, keeps their mouths shut. It is worse than a scandal, it is a crime that these union leaders are abandoning the Puerto Rican workers as they are being beaten and gassed. The struggles of the Puerto Rican workers, many of them teachers, must not be left isolated from the general offensive that is beginning to emerge around education in particular.  Puerto Rico's teachers' struggles can join with and get help from the Arizona teachers and those in other states in their battles with the state governments.

In this way,  these battles for a decent education and a future for our children, can spread to every state. These beginnings of a more than localized offensive against capitalist austerity and the trade union hierarchy that supports it, can be made in to a national and international struggle. It is hard when engaged in the middle of battle to think of the big pie rather than our slice of it, but what would help all these struggles, would strengthen them and make them more effective, would be a call for an immediate conference of all these teachers and educators struggles to organize for this. 

Such a conference could also be the platform for reaching out to the numerous movements across the United States that are fighting back against the capitalist offensive, from the rising movement of women and sexual harassment in the workplace and those marginalized communities demanding equal rights and freedom from discrimination, to the forces that have risen to combat racism, environmental destruction and the pollution of our land and water.

Such a conference could also be a first step in building a new fighting, democratic rank and file opposition in the unions to the present leaderships collaboration with the bosses in driving down workers' living standards.  Through this process new union leadership would emerge.  It is inevitable that the question of electoral politics would be raised by such a conference and the idea of challenging the dictatorship of our political process by the two capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans can be raised. Running candidates out of, and rooted in the movement on the ground  and in opposition to the two capitalist parties will get a very positive response.

The sectarianism and or opportunism of the many self styled revolutionary groups makes it impossible for these groups to build such a movement or even assist struggling workers to do so in a serious way. A new movement, a new network of opposition to the bosses' offensive has to be built and as part of this process,  a revolutionary socialist current can be worked for in a non sectarian manner and with a democratic culture.

Solidarity With Teachers and all Workers in Puerto Rico

From Mercedes Martinez

President: The Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR)

Dear Comrades,

I am writing all of you to let you know about what has been happening in Puerto Rico.  On April 18, 2018 the Oversight Fiscal Board, imposed by the US Congress, submitted different fiscal plans for our country. I attached them below, so you may read them.  In the Commonwealth's plan, page 70 and beyond you can see all of what they approved to be implemented for the Department of Education:

" PRDE has closed over 480 schools (30% of K-12 schools) since 1990. After SY2016-17, PRDE closed 167 schools, 84 and announced plans to close another 283 schools after SY2017-18.85 After an analysis of several factors including capacity, geographic and cultural characteristics, distance to neighboring schools, transportation costs, and facility quality, among others, the Government has determined that it will be able to close a total of 307 schools before FY2020, or an additional 24 schools beyond this summer’s planned closings, and it must do so."

" PRDE must achieve $53 million in net personnel savings and $6 million in non-personnel savings in FY19."

" the number of school administration (principals, office staff, etc.), food service staff, facility maintenance staff, and other school-specific staff shall be scaled down accounting for a smaller number of schools. This should result in $124.8 million in savings by FY2023."

" These teacher focused measures should achieve $194.5 million in run-rate savings by FY2023, inclusive of transition costs under workforce reduction policies (e.g., liquidation of vacation pay"

These are some of the contents included in the fiscal plans I attached, as you can see, it's Disaster Capitalism in Hormones. This will mean thousands of layoffs, hundreds of school closures, added to Law 85 that now allows 10% charter implementation beginning August 2018.

We are facing the biggest attack ever.  We had a National Assembly that determined to strike May 1st, if the government does not revoke these  measures on May 2nd, we will go to the governor's mansion to claim he attends our proposals.  If they insist, during the week of May 7-11 we are planning a boycott against standardized testing. 

Yesterday, we had a civil disobedience action, which ended in police brutality against all the teachers that were protesting who had been pepper sprayed.  It was a protest against school closures and all these measures.  I send you a link so you can see a video below.  Police brutality was implemented against the protesters.  Teachers resisted. Please send a solidarity message video if you can.  Upload it to Youtube or post it on my wall in Facebook.  We expect more repression on May 1st and we will not back down!!

Please let us know what is happening in your state or country and how can we support your struggle.

New Fiscal Plan For Puerto Rico

New Fiscal Plan For University of Puerto Rico

Mercedes Martinez on World Labor Hour Tomorrow

Puerto Rico March 2018. Teachers protest school closures and privatization

For our readers who have been following events in Puerto Rico, tune in to radio host David Johnson's World Labor Hour  on Radio Free Urbana tomorrow. David will be talking to Mercedes Martinez, the president of the Puerto Rican Teachers' Union.

Here's the details:

WORLD LABOR HOUR

SATURDAY APRIL 28^th

11 AM – 1 PM  U.S. Central Time

104.5 FM and webcast LIVE worldwide at ; www.wrfu.net

Special program dedicated to May Day – International Labor Day,

and

MERCEDES MARTINEZ – President of the Puerto Rican Teachers Union will be calling in to the program to give a report about the neo-liberal shock doctrine austerity that is being imposed upon the people of Puerto Rico.

Stay tuned after the World Labor Hour for “ NOT ANOTHER SPORTS SHOW “ with Host Fellow Worker Neal Parthun. From 2-3 PM.

WRFU – Radio Free Urbana – listener supported corporate free community radio.

Puerto Rico Teachers in the Front Lines

Mercedes Martinez

Puerto Rico news from Mercedes Martinez teachers union leader. FFWP hopes the translation is accurate and apologizes for our linguistic limitations. We hope to keep folks up to date on these developments in Puerto Rico.
Admin

Siete verdugos, nombrados por el Congreso de EEUU para imponer medidas de austeridad severas sobre nuestra gente acaban de votar a favor del Plan Fiscal.
Siete miembros de una Junta que no fueron electos por nosotros. En cualquier país a eso le llaman dictadura, pero aquí no...aquí le llaman democracia.

Una junta que acaba de aprobar
Despidos de maestros, oficinistas, secretarias, conserjes, empleados de comedor en el DE, cierres de 307 escuelas, elementales con 330 estudiantes y secundarias con 700.
Eliminación de bono de Navidad para empleados públicos y privados, eliminación o reducción de la aportación patronal al plan médico a empleados públicos.
Eliminar el sistema de pensiones vitalicios y pasar a TODOS los maestros a un sistema de aportaciones definidas 401k, recortar las pensiones de 10 a 25% a nuestros jubilados.
La pregunta es: ¿nos vamos a quedar golpeados, o vamos a luchar?

Seven executioners, appointed by the U.S Congress to impose severe austerity measures on our people, have just voted in favour of the fiscal plan.

Seven members of a board who were not elected by us. In any country they call it dictatorship, but not here... here they call it democracy.

A board you just approved

Layoffs of teachers, clerks, secretaries, janitors, dining-room employees, 307 schools with 330 elementary students and 700 middle school students.

Elimination of Christmas bonus for public and private employees, disposal or reduction of employer contribution to the medical plan to public employees.

Remove the life pension system and move ALL teachers to a defined 401 k input system, cut pensions from 10 to 25 % to our retirees.

The question is: are we going to get beaten, or are we going to fight?

Tonight is a sad night in our island. The dictatorial Oversight Control Board approved its fiscal plan. A plan that creates draconian measures against the working class and retirees of our country:

$466.5 million dollar cut in the DOE's budget progressively from 2019-2023
$124.5 million dollar in savings, through lay offs of secretaries, janitors, cafeteria workers and other workers from the DOE.
$194.5 million dollar saving in teacher lay offs
$14 million dollar saving in 283 school closures
elimination of the Christmas bonus
elimination of the pension system and transfer all active public workers to a 401k system
cut from 10 to 25% of the current pensions of retirees
The government approved Law 85, which will allow charters and vouchers.
They want our people to pay a $72 billion odious debt, that was not created by us.
They want to use our kids for profit through the charter and voucher systems.
They approved the privatization of PREPA
They approved to reduce the minimum wage for youth workers of 25 years of age or less
This is what disaster capitalism in steroids looks like!
We have no way out
But fight fight fight!!!!