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Puerto Rican Leader Brings Pledge of Solidarity
Like Puerto Rico's Gov. Pedro Rossell¢, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is attempting to write her own page in history. Rossell¢ would like to be remembered as the governor who won statehood for Puerto Rico. Whitman, if she can't win a place on her party's presidential ticket, would in the next election settle for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Both Whitman, a Republican, and Rossell¢, whose New Progressive Party is aligned with the Republican Party in the United States, have sought to curry favor with political backers by privatizing state services and threatening the job security of public workers. Unions in the Caribbean are fighting back.
Jos‚ Juan Hernandez, age 56, is the compassionate but defiant president of the Uni¢n Independiente de Empleados Telef¢nicos (UIET). With 5,000 members, it is Puerto Rico's largest independent union of telephone workers.
Go back to late June 1998. Hernandez moves quietly along a San Juan picket line. UIET and CAOS, a coalition of public worker unions, student, religious and community groups, are protesting the latest of several attempts to privatize the Puerto Rico Telephone Company, a public utility since 1974. They see it as the beginning of efforts by Rossell¢ to privatize a range of public services, including education, public safety, medical care and highway construction - all supported, in part, by PRTC profits. In 1997 the company's income exceeded expenses by $109 million.
At one moment Hernandez shakes the hand of an activist, placing his other hand reassuringly on the man's shoulder. "How is your family? You really look tired today. Why don't you go home and rest and come back tomorrow?"
In the next, he links arms with union brothers and sisters as shielded police with nightsticks advance to break the line. One man is clubbed senseless, his head and face a bloody pulp. Women like Marie, Jos‚ Juan's wife of 20 years and a UIET steward, shake raised fists and scream their contempt as the violence continues. TNG-CWA Local 25 members working for Puerto Rican news outlets videotape the scene.
Hern ndez neither seeks nor fears such confrontation. "I don't care if they kill me - all of us are going to die," he says. "This is about justice for the workers. You have to fight."
And he knows the persuasive value of martyrdom. "For every one of those people you saw hit, 10,000 supporters left the governor. By the time we finished, we called this `the people's strike.' It wasn't our strike anymore."
As the conflict continued - for 41 days - workers drove by picket lines, honking their horns in support. Some brought food. Others, money. Strikers collected close to $1 million as they distributed flags and bandanas.
Responding to a CAOS resolution, on July 7 and 8, an estimated 500,000 public and private workers - a sixth of the island's population of three million - took to the streets, bringing commerce and public services to a halt. They shut down the international airport for nearly five hours. Twenty-five percent of the phone network failed.
In retaliation, Rossell¢ filed lawsuits against the unions for destruction of property and violation of the no-strike clause in their contract. Meanwhile, U.S.-based GTE, the bidder selected to take over PRTC, announced plans to cut 2,000 jobs.
CWA, having since 1991 participated in a mutual assistance pact with UIET, worked through contacts in the National Governors' Association, then chaired by Rossell¢. CWA President Morton Bahr used his influence with both the White House and GTE, seeking a solution that would allow the defiant strikers to return to work with dignity.
Rossell¢ reluctantly withdrew the lawsuits and other sanctions, and GTE pledged to reduce its workforce through attrition and retirements, with no layoffs. Also, the company agreed to keep phone rates the same for the next three years.
On July 27, 1998, 7,000 members of UIET and its sister union HIETEL returned to work at PRTC. On Dec. 13, voters defeated Rossell¢'s statehood referendum by a 6.8- percent margin. The governor admitted the privatization of PRTC had affected the vote. Rossell¢ no longer chairs the Governors' Association, and Hernandez says, matter-of-factly, Rossell¢ will not be re-elected.
On March 6, the Puerto Rican union president won thunderous applause from CWA's Committee of 1,000 with his pledge of solidarity: "Here in the States, you have this woman Christie, who is like our bad governor. We have to kick both of them out of government."
Jos‚ Juan Hernandez, age 56, is the compassionate but defiant president of the Uni¢n Independiente de Empleados Telef¢nicos (UIET). With 5,000 members, it is Puerto Rico's largest independent union of telephone workers.
Go back to late June 1998. Hernandez moves quietly along a San Juan picket line. UIET and CAOS, a coalition of public worker unions, student, religious and community groups, are protesting the latest of several attempts to privatize the Puerto Rico Telephone Company, a public utility since 1974. They see it as the beginning of efforts by Rossell¢ to privatize a range of public services, including education, public safety, medical care and highway construction - all supported, in part, by PRTC profits. In 1997 the company's income exceeded expenses by $109 million.
At one moment Hernandez shakes the hand of an activist, placing his other hand reassuringly on the man's shoulder. "How is your family? You really look tired today. Why don't you go home and rest and come back tomorrow?"
In the next, he links arms with union brothers and sisters as shielded police with nightsticks advance to break the line. One man is clubbed senseless, his head and face a bloody pulp. Women like Marie, Jos‚ Juan's wife of 20 years and a UIET steward, shake raised fists and scream their contempt as the violence continues. TNG-CWA Local 25 members working for Puerto Rican news outlets videotape the scene.
Hern ndez neither seeks nor fears such confrontation. "I don't care if they kill me - all of us are going to die," he says. "This is about justice for the workers. You have to fight."
And he knows the persuasive value of martyrdom. "For every one of those people you saw hit, 10,000 supporters left the governor. By the time we finished, we called this `the people's strike.' It wasn't our strike anymore."
As the conflict continued - for 41 days - workers drove by picket lines, honking their horns in support. Some brought food. Others, money. Strikers collected close to $1 million as they distributed flags and bandanas.
Responding to a CAOS resolution, on July 7 and 8, an estimated 500,000 public and private workers - a sixth of the island's population of three million - took to the streets, bringing commerce and public services to a halt. They shut down the international airport for nearly five hours. Twenty-five percent of the phone network failed.
In retaliation, Rossell¢ filed lawsuits against the unions for destruction of property and violation of the no-strike clause in their contract. Meanwhile, U.S.-based GTE, the bidder selected to take over PRTC, announced plans to cut 2,000 jobs.
CWA, having since 1991 participated in a mutual assistance pact with UIET, worked through contacts in the National Governors' Association, then chaired by Rossell¢. CWA President Morton Bahr used his influence with both the White House and GTE, seeking a solution that would allow the defiant strikers to return to work with dignity.
Rossell¢ reluctantly withdrew the lawsuits and other sanctions, and GTE pledged to reduce its workforce through attrition and retirements, with no layoffs. Also, the company agreed to keep phone rates the same for the next three years.
On July 27, 1998, 7,000 members of UIET and its sister union HIETEL returned to work at PRTC. On Dec. 13, voters defeated Rossell¢'s statehood referendum by a 6.8- percent margin. The governor admitted the privatization of PRTC had affected the vote. Rossell¢ no longer chairs the Governors' Association, and Hernandez says, matter-of-factly, Rossell¢ will not be re-elected.
On March 6, the Puerto Rican union president won thunderous applause from CWA's Committee of 1,000 with his pledge of solidarity: "Here in the States, you have this woman Christie, who is like our bad governor. We have to kick both of them out of government."