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I helped organizing unorganized colleagues at my workplace into Doctors Council (Affiliate of the Service Employees); International
Union, (SEIU). The union's strength in membership prevented my dismissal when a new contract and new boss came to our workplace.
This is part of what compels me to issue the SEIU a call for solidarity with another union which similarly defends its members,
the FMPR, the Federation of Puerto Rico Teachers.
The FMPR, a teachers' union with 44,000 members in Puerto Rico, is a strong, democratic, instrument of the teachers' struggle
that has just lost its legal right, under Public Law 45 (similar to the Taylor Law in New York City), as exclusive representative
of the public school teachers, in the midst of a strike in which they confronted the government-boss, the main media (TV,
radio, press) and unfortunately, the leadership of my union's affiliate, the SEIU. The FMPR continues organizing the public
school teachers now as a bonafide-type union, or open shop.
The teachers' strike was successful in
1. halting formation of charter schools and outright privatization of public schools by the Puerto Rican government,
2. pressuring the Puerto Rican Secretary of Education into repudiating the U.S. federal law known as "No Child Left
Behind" when previously he was one of its supporters,
3. negotiating an agreement from the Puerto Rican government, of a raise for teachers of $250.00 monthly for this year
-already got $100.00 monthly,
4. negotiating a commitment from the Puerto Rican government, to dedicate 25% of the bonds emission for the next 5 years,
to school improvement.
The SEIU in Puerto Rico should staunchly support the FMPR. This is not the case. Instead, the SEIU is trying to raid the
FMPR, a shameful act of union piracy. The SEIU is allying itself with the Asociacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico, (AMPR), (Association
of Puerto Rican Teachers), an organization that includes principals and superintendents, which started the Sindicato Puertorriqueno
de Maestros, (SPM). The SPM claims to represent teachers, admitting only teachers as members, seemingly eliminating the conflict
of interest, however, the president of both the AMPR and the SPM is the same person, Aida Diaz. This "union" is
sarcastically re-named by thousands of teachers in Puerto Rico as "Sindicato Patronal de Maestros" or "Union
of Teachers' Bosses" and rightly so. This bosses' organization is now an affiliate of the Sindicato Puertorriqueno de
Trabajadores-SPT (Union of Puerto Rican Workers), which is one of two SEIU local affiliates in Puerto Rico. This relationship
is destructive to unionized workers in Puerto Rico. The raiding of the FMPR of its exclusive representation of teachers in
the Department of Education is a betrayal of the teachers and of the principles of solidarity among workers.
As long as the labor movement in Puerto Rico remains divided, the government-bosses, financial institutions, such as banks,
mega corporations, such as Wal-Mart, the owners of industrial plants and construction businesses gain the power to pass laws
like the LAW OF TAX INCENTIVES (LTI), which paves the way for privatization of the electric power industry, public schools,
the expressway tolls' administration, and to further privatize the health care sector, among other similar efforts. The economic
crisis deepens each time an institution of the public sector is sold into private hands, permitting the bosses to gouge greater
profits out of working people's wages, with even less accountability than before to the working class.
The SEIU must not participate in furthering divisions, but in uniting in solidarity with Puerto Rican unions, which truly
represent its members'interests. The FMPR is such a union. Unions which are truly representative of working people's interests
do not attempt to raid and destroy unions like the FMPR. As a member of an SEIU affiliate, I call for the SEIU's solidarity
with the FMPR!
WHAT CAN THE SEIU DO TO FURTHER SHOW ITS SOLIDARITY?
Just as 85-90% of workers are unorganized in the US, in Puerto Rico the case is the same; the same can be said of the
situation of undocumented workers. Working people's unions must increase emphasis on organizing the unorganized, and on organizing
the undocumented into unions that represent their interests. In Puerto Rico, in addition to the thousands of unorganized
workers native to the island, there are some 350,000 immigrants; thousands are workers without union protection, and many
are also undocumented. The SEIU should be doing this work, rather than attacking the membership rosters of established and
successful Puerto Rican unions, which the SEIU had no part in building and has no right to destroy.
THE COALITION IN DEFENSE OF THE PEOPLE
An example of a constructive role which has been played by the SEIU in Puerto Rico is its involvement in an action to
unite union forces there. This action for unity was started among others by the SPT and the Union General de Trabajadores
(UGT), the General Workers Union, both SEIU local affiliates, the AFL-CIO and the Coordinadora Sindical de Puerto Rico, (a
trade union coalition including the FMPR and la Union de Trabajadores de la Industria Electrica y el Riego, -UTIER, the Electrical
Workers Union-. The result of the action was the formation of the Coalition in Defense of the People (CDP)).
The CDP was formed to challenge the LTI, a law which, if passed, will deepen the theft of working people's income. The
CDP will have a demonstration on May 28th, 2008 in front of the Governor's official residence. This is an important opportunity
for the SEIU and all other members of the CDP to build solidarity among themselves and to recruit new members, from among
the unorganized, and the undocumented.
In summary, to show solidarity, The SEIU in Puerto Rico MUST:
1. REJECT the Clause of Law 45, -banning the right to strike- by any means possible including deployment of picket lines
in front of workplaces and even strikes maybe necessary as the government-boss increases its repression in the workplace
2. SUPPORT Puerto Rican teachers right to representation by the union they have chosen, the FMPR, as a fighting union
which defends their interests, and
3. UNIONIZE the unorganized and undocumented!
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