San Juan, Puerto Rico – On May 1, police in Puerto Rico responded to tens of thousands of people marching against austerity with serious repression including tear gas, pepper spray and arrests.

The Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) along with the Broad Front in Defence of Public Education (FADEP) called a strike on May 1 in opposition to the government’s plan to close hundreds of schools and privatize public education. Many other workers and other social movements such as Jornada Se Acabaron las Promesas, a movement that formed in 2016 to resist the colonial ‘Promesa Act’, also mobilized to the Milla de Oro in San Juan to oppose the harsh austerity measures that the Wall Street-imposed Fiscal Control Board is trying to implement.

FMPR President Mercedes Martinez posted on Facebook about what happened: “Yesterday more than 60,000 people went to the Milla de Oro to protest against the austerity measures of the Control Board and Ricardo Roselló. Eight marches from different starting points. Workers, fathers, mothers, environmentalists, students, feminists, public health workers, religious people, retired workers, all with one voice demanding that they don't abide by the fiscal plans that drive us into misery.”

Video footage has gone viral on social media showing the police launching tear gas and pepper spray at the May 1 protesters. Around 20 protesters were also arrested. Video has also emerged of large numbers of police entering neighborhoods after the protest to track down people who were at the protest and taking them from their homes forcefully to arrest them.

After the repression on May 1, another march was called for the evening of May 2 to demand that the people arrested on May 1 be freed, as well as continuing to protest the Promesa Act, the Fiscal Control Board, school closings and privatization of public education, the robbing of pensions, and more. As of May 2 in the evening, five of the people who were arrested on May 1 were reportedly still in jail.

Noelanie Fuentes, a leader of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation in Rio Grande, was an eyewitness to the tear gassing and repression on May 1 in San Juan. She said, “Yesterday I didn’t simply see young people, adults, kids or elders in a protest where they covered up our constitutional right to participate in one. Yesterday I also saw the face of the solidarity, hope, life and energy necessary to begin to stop the oppression, corruption and intimidation carried out by the supposed leaders of our country. I saw enough bravery to fight against the colonial system we live in and make our rights matter as a people. In that crowd which was trapped, there was no fear – there was courage, rage and indignation. Enough to not leave and to be there for hours fighting to accomplish what we had set out to do. Wake up boricuas, they’ve given us the signal, wake up from this dream, it’s time to struggle. We’re already awake and there’s enough of us to struggle, resist and win!”

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #May1 #Strikes #FederaciónDeMaestrosDePuertoRico #PuertoRicanTeachersFederation #JornadaSeAcabaronLasPromesas

San Juan, Puerto Rico – On April 27, police pepper sprayed teachers in a protest led by the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) outside the Department of Education. The teachers were protesting the government’s plan to close hundreds of public schools as part of a massive ‘education reform’ plan to privatize public education.

FMPR President Mercedes Martinez said, “It was abusive, an unnecessary abuse of power against unarmed teachers that were peacefully protesting against the government’s outrages,” and that “they used pepper spray disproportionately, they sprayed pepper spray like it was a joke, it was a shame what happened today.”

The Puerto Rican Teachers Federation, along with the Broad Front in Defense of Public Education (FADEP) is not letting the police attack stop their organizing to defend public education. They announced that there will not be classes in Puerto Rico’s schools on May 1, International Workers Day, because teachers are going on strike. Teachers and school communities across Puerto Rico will converge in San Juan to march from the Department of Education to the ‘Milla de Oro’.

In a statement, the FADEP said, “May 1 is a day in which teachers, mothers, fathers, students and diverse sectors of civil society will unite in one voice to demand that they stop the closing and privatization of schools,” “On May 1 we’ll have an overwhelming expression to stop school closings and to demand that Education Secretary Julia Keleher resign and we can get back on the path of a true transformation of the education system.”

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #strike #Strikes #TeachersUnions #FederaciónDeMaestrosDePuertoRico

The Puerto Rican Teachers Federation and allied teachers’ organizations in the Broad Front in Defense of Public Education (FADEP) have called a national teachers’ strike in Puerto Rico for March 19. The strike is in response to the Puerto Rican House of Representatives passing an education reform bill this week that would introduce charter schools and private school vouchers and that would close hundreds of public schools. The government is trying to opportunistically push through this sweeping attack while Puerto Rico is still recovering from the destruction of Hurricane Maria.

At the same time as this push for privatization of public education, Puerto Rico's governor also announced his plan to privatize Puerto Rico's electrical system. Such privatization efforts are at the behest of U.S. corporations and the colonial Fiscal Control Board, which is demanding deep cuts and privatization of public services in Puerto Rico to collect on Puerto Rico's unjust and unpayable debt at the expense of the needs of the people of Puerto Rico.

To become a law, the education reform bill would still need to be considered by Puerto Rico’s senate and signed by Puerto Rico’s governor. To try to stop that from happening, teachers throughout Puerto Rico will strike on Monday, shutting down public schools and converging in San Juan to march on the capitol in repudiation of the proposal that’s currently in front of the senate.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #Strikes #TeachersUnions #PuertoRicanTeachersFederation

San Juan, Puerto Rico – In an escalation in their fight to stop the government from closing or privatizing public schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation occupied Education Secretary Julia Keleher’s office Nov. 7 in an act of civil disobedience. 21 teachers were arrested standing up in defense of public education in Puerto Rico.

All 21 teachers were released late the night of Nov. 7. In a press conference the morning of Nov. 8, the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation called on school communities to intensify the struggle to demand that their schools be reopened. The majority of public schools still have not been reopened a month and a half after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico Sept. 20. Secretary Keleher has said they plan to close and consolidate schools after the hurricane.

The Teachers Federation called on teachers, families and students to join them in a national protest on Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. in front of the Education Department. They are calling for all public schools to be reopened and for an end to the agenda of privatization. Mercedes Martínez, president of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation, said, “Secretary Keleher should know that if she continues her plans to close our kids’ schools, our communities will continue to build resistance. She must reopen all schools!”

The Teachers Federation has been warning that the government is opportunistically taking advantage of the chaos after Hurricane Maria to close hundreds of public schools. The government has tried to close and privatize public schools for a decade but has been thwarted by teachers, students and communities organizing to defend their schools and public education. They warn that the government is trying to copy what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when 7000 teachers were fired and all public schools were converted to charter schools overnight. The Teachers Federation is working to prevent that ‘disaster capitalism’ from dismantling public education in Puerto Rico.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria #FederaciónDeMaestrosDePuertoRico

Eulalia “Laly” Centeno was interviewed Oct. 23 at the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation office in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Centeno is a teacher at the Salvador Brau Elementary School in Cayey and active with the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation. She talks about the danger of the government using the crisis of Hurricane Maria to impose massive school closings and privatize public education in Puerto Rico – as they’ve tried to do for years but have not been able to because of resistance from teachers and the community. She warns that the government is using the model that was used in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when public schools were closed en masse and changed to privatized charter schools. Interview and translation into English by Brad Sigal. Fight Back!: Can you tell us who you are and what’s happening with your school? Eulalia Centeno: I’m Eulalia Centeno Ramos, better known as Laly Centeno. I’m a teacher and affiliated with the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). I’m an elementary school teacher at the school called Salvador Brau, which is a K-6 school. In this difficult moment that the country is living through, the school where I work is in the best possible condition because it has electricity, it has water, and it’s clean because the teachers and workers of the school did all the cleaning. We got everything ready. We organized the program to welcome back students and start the academic process. All areas are ready to start classes.

But then the Education Secretary announced that in this school, this town, this region, classes won’t start until the Commission of Engineers from the U.S. comes and certifies it. They are saying that for now the students aren’t allowed to be in the school. But the workers, all the workers are in the school! I can’t understand that.

What makes us think that the government has a plan with the intention to get more money out of FEMA and is projecting to close schools and eventually merge them is that this already was the plan that the Fiscal Control Board had. Now Hurricane Maria has just opened the doors for them to come in and undo everything and play with the emotional state and conditions of our children, our parents, our staff, so that they can impose school closings and eliminate teachers from the system. With our children living in the subhuman conditions in which we’re living in terms of health and security they even said we couldn’t use the school kitchens in our schools in the center of the island to provide food for the people.

Because of all this, it’s clear they want to do long-term school closings so they’re being very selective about which schools to reopen first because this would be a new class cycle. They’re being very selective and that way they can close schools and provide ‘alternatives’ to the children of our country.

Fight Back!: And these school closings are part of a privatization agenda, like what happened after Hurricane Katrina? Centeno: Yes, they want to go through a process of privatization. Yes. Because what happened with Katrina, they have established in writing that they are using the Katrina model here in Puerto Rico. Already, right now, they are offering the public school up to the association of private schools to use the buildings of the public schools. They are ready to give them over to them so they can use them. But they are not opening the schools up to the people in the same way.

The most lamentable part of all this is that the [other] union that is supposed to represent teachers, the Association of Teachers, is being complicit in this process of school closings, of privatization of the schools in the country. It’s in writing and the governor and education secretary have said that the model they’re using is the Katrina model from New Orleans and we know this is what happened there. So we in the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation are alerting the country, we’re alerting parents, we’re alerting the community that we can not allow this.

What they are doing is not helping the country, it’s for the benefit of a few rich people using the needs of the people to do it.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #privatization #TeachersUnions #FederaciónDeMaestrosDePuertoRico #PuertoRicanTeachersFederation

Mercedes Martinez was interviewed on Oct. 22 in San Juan, just over a month after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. Martinez is president of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). The FMPR is a leading force in the struggle to defend public education and workers’ rights in Puerto Rico against attacks and attempted privatization. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, they initiated volunteer work brigades to address people's immediate dire needs, while also speaking out and mobilizing against the government's developing plan to use the hurricane as a pretext to close and privatize schools, like what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when public schools were replaced by charter schools. Interview and translation to English by Brad Sigal. Fight Back: We're here in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Let's start with who you are and what is the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation? Mercedes Martínez: I'm Mercedes Martínez Padilla, president of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation. The Federation is a union of Puerto Rican teachers, education workers, social workers, advisors, librarians. Educators who struggle to defend public and liberatory education in our country, in defense of the rights of Puerto Rican teachers above all, and for accessible and quality public education for our students.

Fight Back!: What's the situation with public education and with teachers in Puerto Rico? Martínez: Public education in our country, like in all capitalist countries, has been under attack for many years. In the past four years, both of the major governing parties, the Popular Democratic Party and the New Progressive Party, have tried to close more than 320 public schools. They've created a situation with 35 or more students per classroom. They've been eliminating and repealing rights that the working class had won.

In the face of this general globalized attack on public education, the Federation has been struggling against the rolling back of rights that workers have won, defending the education of our kids. In this struggle we have succeeded in saving more than 300 schools that were threatened with being closed. In 2008 we had a strike and we succeed in stopping their goal of creating charter schools in Puerto Rico.

There is still not a single privatized school in Puerto Rico, mainly because of the militant struggle of Puerto Rican teachers. It was the Federation that led the 2008 strike that succeeded in winning an agreement with the government that stipulated that no public school would be privatized in our country. We still have a lot to do, and in that sense, we're working, organizing communities to do what is needed to defend public education in our country.

Fight Back!: What's changed since Hurricane Maria? What's the situation a month after the hurricane for the majority, the workers? Martínez: The crisis has intensified. This country was already in a crisis before the hurricane. The bad distribution of wealth and the class difference between the wealthy class and the working class and the poor was enormous, is enormous. Obviously now that has intensified. Poor people have no access to drinkable water, no electricity or access to electricity. They don't have money to buy generators to have electricity. They don't have gas stoves so they're mainly eating canned goods. Roads are impassable, the routes to get to some homes is incredibly difficult. There are flooded homes. There are still many people missing that we don't know where they are even today, and the government hasn't given that the attention it needs. Because of all this, the crisis for the working class and poor people in our country has intensified a lot. Obviously with the hurricane the crisis of the capitalist model is showing in all its splendor, and all the Puerto Ricans here on the island are suffering it and living through it.

Fight Back!: What is the Federation doing after the hurricane? Can you tell us about the brigades you've organized? Martínez: Yes. The Teachers Federation has organized work brigades. There’s an effort to establish access to public roads in our communities. We're installing roofs on the houses of compañeros who have lost their roofs. We're cutting trees [that block roads], collecting debris. We're bringing canned food and hot food out to communities. We're bringing gallons of water. We have different kinds of brigades. Brigades to make an impact to help clear roads, clean homes, deal with serious damage. We're doing brigades where volunteers bring food to people who have nothing to eat. We're bringing medications. We're coordinating with nurses in the U.S. who are coming to evaluate Puerto Rican people who don't have access to health care in these times. We're giving monetary donations to teachers, students and affected communities. So many people from the diaspora have reached out that I can't name them all because I'll surely leave someone out, but we're thankful to everyone that has helped, including with our GoFundMe. With this money we can go out and have an impact in communities.

Fight Back!: What can workers, unions and progressive people in the U.S. and other countries do to support you in your struggle? Martínez: First, join in the call for a moratorium on the public debt they want to collect on. There's an illegitimate debt that we don't recognize of more than $72 billion dollars. A moratorium on the debt, that this debt not be paid.

That the Jones Act be completely repealed so that aid is allowed to arrive from people from other countries that want to show solidarity with our country. Aid from the Cuban people, the Venezuelan people, hasn't been able to arrive in our country because of the Jones Act which prohibits this much-needed humanitarian aid in solitary with our country from arriving. There needs to be an international outcry. The elimination of the debt, the repealing of the Jones Act.

Money can be sent in solidarity to our GoFundMe account. Talk to your friends.

Write to your president, your senators, your representatives in the U.S. so they hear the most important demands: that the debt be cancelled and the Jones Act be eliminated. These are two very important demands so that the aid that needs to get to our country arrives, and so that the working class and the people don't pay for the crisis. As the slogan says, “the people before the debt”. And help for the people, those who are really in need, and who are the ones raising up this country day by day with their labor and their sweat.

Fight Back!: What would you say in response to the words and actions of President Trump and the U.S. government regarding Hurricane Maria? Martínez: President Trump is a very cynical person, a person that doesn't have any sensitivity. Puerto Ricans are lifting ourselves up day after day. We're helping each other with solidarity. Trump says that Puerto Ricans want everything done for them. That’s disrespectful to the Puerto Rican people and it’s not new. For more than 100 years as a colony our people have risen up day after day to move our country forward. Our fellow Puerto Ricans show solidarity by sharing food if needed to feed their neighbors. Our compatriots get up every day to clear roads with machete in hand without waiting for anyone to arrive. Help from the government hasn't arrived, the supposed help from the federal government. So Puerto Ricans aren't waiting for anything.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #TeachersUnions #PuertoRicanTeachersFederation #MercedesMartinez

An Oct. 18 statement from the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation said, “After refusing to listen to the suggestions of teachers’ organizations, Education Secretary Julia Keleher insists on restarting the school year without schools being in any condition to receive kids. In another example of insensitivity, she threatened teachers with suspension of pay if they don’t follow her orders.”

Soon after the hurricane, the FMPR union had proposed to create assemblies of parents, teachers, students and workers to rehabilitate their neighborhood schools, and also to open up public school cafeterias to the community to help communities recover. They also proposed that the decision about when to reopen schools should be made school-by-school, based on when each school has been made safe through needed repairs and cleanup and when they have electricity and water.

The FMPR statement continues, “Secretary Keleher didn’t listen to these teachers’ union proposals and now hundreds of schools are not ready. On top of that in many parts of the country there is severe flooding that affect all parts of the academic community. For the government the reopening of schools is just something to show ‘another indication of the recovery of Puerto Rico’ to be referenced in the chief executive’s press conferences. It’s an ‘accomplishment’ to be referred to in the administration’s constant media campaign. The Teachers’ Federation calls for setting aside all considerations that are bureaucratic, political or a product of the Department of Education’s lack of sense, and instead to focus on providing an adequate climate for our students. Let's make ‘everything for the kids’ mean something rather than just being a manipulative slogan.”

#SanJuanPuertoRico #PeoplesStruggles #PuertoRico #FederationOfTeachersOfPuertoRico

San Juan, Puerto Rico — On Oct. 20, one month after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the secretary of AFSCME Local 3800, Brad Sigal, was in San Juan to bring a donation of money and medicines to the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR, the union's initials in Spanish).

The donations came from AFSCME Locals 3800, 3937, 2822 and many individuals in Minnesota. At the FMPR's San Juan office, Sigal presented the donations to the teacher's union president Mercedes Martinez. The donations will be used in the FMPR's post-hurricane work brigades in hard-hit communities.

A month after the hurricane, the majority of Puerto Ricans still have no electricity or water and schools have not reopened. The U.S. government's flagrantly inadequate relief and reconstruction efforts have been punctuated by President Trump's racist and insulting comments and actions in reference to Puerto Rico.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuanPR #Labor #PeoplesStruggles #PuertoRico #unions #Minnesota

One of the demands the strike is fighting for is continuing financial assistance for athletes, art students and sons and daughters of the university employees. The university administration and the government do not see eye to eye with the students and what has been offered so far many students see as only scraps.

The most important points in the negotiations have not been met – like the financial extensions or the demand to protect the strike against repression. Another important demand is that the university opens its financial books to the public. This is where the administration doesn’t want to go and what keeps the movement on its feet.

Already the riot police have been used against the students on more than one occasion. There is constant watch by the state police, but the students have held their ground bravely, with help from the incredible worker and community support. Different camps have been set up in and around the campus, maintained by the workers, professors, parents of the students, unions and organizations.

This is all created as a direct result of the chief of police recently stating that no one can take food or water to the strikers. The chief of police decided to do this after Governor Luis Fortuna, in his State of the Country speech, said, “To study in the University of Puerto Rico is a privilege not a right.” This is the attitude that the university administration, backed by the government, has tried to take in regards to the students, but the students are still fighting and standing strong and they will not stop until every one of their demands are met.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #StudentMovement #PuertoRico #StudentStrike #UniversityOfPuertoRico

Many of the convention participants helped lead the huge immigrant rights marches this past March and May of 2006, like Jose Artemio Arreola – a janitor from Chicago SEIU Local 73 and a leader of that city's March 10 Coalition.

International Latino Caucus members have been active in their locals fighting for immigration reform and against the war in Iraq. They are leaders in their unions and community. They include health, government, home care and janitorial services workers and staff. Also present were delegations from Puerto Rico’s Union General de Trabajadores and the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Puerto Rico.

The International Latino Caucus general assembly passed important resolutions on the fight for immigration reform in 2007; condemning the killing of labor activists in Colombia; against the ‘free trade agreement’ signed by President Bush in November; in support the struggle in Oaxaca and backing the struggle of Puerto Rican workers against privatization and against the attacks on public services.

The International Latino Caucus also made plans to participate in this year’s May 1 national day of actions for immigrant rights, citizenship campaigns, get-out-the-vote efforts and to build local International Latino Caucus chapters.

Carlos Montes is member of the Latino Committee of SEIU Local 660 and a veteran activist in the Chicano liberation movement.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #ImmigrantRights #News #SEIU #ChicanoLatino #InternationalLatinoCaucus

San Juan, Puerto Rico – Demanding a halt to the repression of activists working for the independence of Puerto Rico, about 1000 people rallied at the Federal Courthouse here, Jan. 10. Protests took place in ten other cities including, Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles.

Three young Puerto Ricans, Tania Frontera, Christopher Torres and Julio Pabón, have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in New York. Organizers of the protests say the government wants to obtain information about the Popular Boricua Army – Macheteros, including identifying a series of independence leaders affiliated with organizations that struggle for the decolonization and independence of Puerto Rico.

The grand jury, which was scheduled to convene in mid-January, has now been pushed back to February.

Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States. A large movement is working to end U.S. domination there to achieve independence.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #News #PuertoRico #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PuertoRicanPrisoners #PopularBoricuaArmyMacheteros #TaniaFrontera #ChristopherTorres #JulioPabón