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Puerto Rico Teachers Fight Against Privatization and Low Wages

Members of the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers marching through San Juan

The people of Puerto Rico (or Borinquén, in the indigenous Taíno language) are in a situation all too familiar to New Orleans. The island is still in a state of crisis nearly a year after Hurricane Maria made landfall, thanks to the criminal negligence of the U.S. colonial government. On top of that, the working class is under intense attack in the form of budget cuts imposed by the federally-appointed Fiscal Control Board.

As with other spheres of life in Puerto Rico, the education system is threatened by the budget cuts. If the Fiscal Control Board has its way, the public educational system will be completely gutted and replaced by private schools.

Educators are resisting, however. They are demanding an end to the school closures as well as increased pay and an overall better allocation of resources to education. On August 15, the Puerto Rican Federation of Teachers carried out a work stoppage and marched through old San Juan. The march started at the Plaza Colón and went to the governor’s office.

According to the union president Mercedes Martinez Padilla, “The public education system,… the students and their teachers, have suffered the most brutal attack in history. Secretary of Education Julia Keleher has decreed the closure of some 450 schools in two years and has reduced the number of educators from 31,000 in 2016 to around 22,500 today. The government is poised to push the creation of dozens of private charter schools, subsidized with public funds.”

So far, over 250 schools have already been closed, including many that were in perfectly functional condition. Instead of keeping these schools open, Keleher is having them spend millions on FEMA trailers for classes that each cost over $42,000. Many special-needs children have not been given assignments. Many children are meeting in gazebos and buildings/trailers without AC and have not been provided with transportation for their new school assignments.

Given these extreme attacks, the educators have much to fight for.

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Disaster Capitalism Keeps Puerto Rico Suffering

By Marie Torres

When we read mainstream bourgeois media, it is easy to feel that there is heartache after heartache. What we see are the patterns in the way that the rich ruling class moves through the world — how the rich profit off of the suffering of the working class, and how the rich profit off of disasters. Borinquen (Puerto Rico) after hurricane Maria is looking a lot like New Orleans after Katrina. Thousands are left without necessities and are dying while wealthy corporations are vultures waiting to feast. A little over 6 months since the storm, people on the island are still without electricity or proper roofing, The U.S.-imposed government is closing schools and has begun privatization (charter schools). Jobs are few.

The island is a U.S. colony that pays U.S. taxes, follows U.S. law, and every Boricua is technically a U.S. citizen. Between 1990 and 2009, when it went into severe economic crisis, the island paid $73 billion in taxes– more than several U.S. states. Additionally, Congress passed the Promesa Act under the Obama Administration that aims to force Boricuas to pay an illegitimate debt of $74 billion. As you can see, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are equally responsible for this mess. Boricuas can’t vote for the president and have no congressional representation, but they can die fighting in U.S. wars.

The history of the U.S. government’s treatment of Boricuas is not pretty. Like in New Orleans, the richest get tax breaks and are free to conduct their business for massive profit by exploiting workers. Wealthy (white) stateside businesses treat the island like a corporate playground, leaving scraps for the natives.

Hurricane Maria hit on September 20 2017, and it was the worst storm in over 100 years. The storm passed through the entirety of the island and left utter destruction behind. Maria caused the second-worst blackout recorded in world history. Many were left without clean water, food, medicine or gasoline. Government negligence has killed over 1,000 Boricuas not far off from the devastating number of 1,800 in New Orleans from Katrina. Since Maria, there have been extreme increases in deaths from diseases such as sepsis, pneumonia, emphysema and diabetes. Many of these deaths were preventable if food, clean water, electricity and medicine were available and if hospitals were fully functioning.

Like during Katrina, the government increased military occupation of the island and brokered deals for private corporations to profit off of disaster. The president visited only to bring up how the island’s debt was screwing up the U.S. budget. The government gave a Montana electricity company, WhiteFish Energy Holdings, a company that had only one truck, a $300 million contract. On April 18th, the island went into another complete blackout. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been as disappointing as it was from Katrina.– a hideously delayed response, FEMA employees are seen partying in San Juan casinos while Boricuas die in the mountains, and large shipments of supplies are not distributed to those who need it most. All the while, ads call for white tourists to swarm the island’s beaches and buy up real estate from right under poor Boricuas.

The impact on the Boricua’s mind and spirit has been heartbreaking. A forgotten people abandoned by the white supremacist U.S. government during their highest time of need, Boricuas are suffering from the daily struggle of living in 90-degree temperatures without electricity, clean water, enough food and with death all around. The suicide rate has spiked 30% since the storm. Since January, there have been over 3,000 calls of suicide attempts to the Puerto Rican crisis hotline, a 246% increase from last year. This is a tragedy that those who survived Katrina know well: following the 2005 storm, mental illness rates more than doubled, with disease rates increasing as well. However, to the rich ruling class, depression of poor and working-class people is of no concern.

Huge waves of Boricuas were forced to leave their homeland since 2009, and again after the storm, with those left behind facing a blow to the children. The government has proposed shutting 283 schools. The plan of the rich is to impose charter schools and private school vouchers and we know what that means–issues of transportation, special needs students, and limited access to quality education for working class and poor families.

However, Boricuas are fighting back. The Puerto Rico Teachers Association (Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico) composed of 30,000 teachers, has filed a lawsuit against a bill to implement a charter schools program and offer private school vouchers to 3 percent of students starting in 2019-2020. Teachers, students and parents throughout the island are demonstrating, calling for public education funds to be used for children, not to profit private companies!

On May Day, Boricuas took to the streets in mass to protest austerity measures. They were met with heavily militarized police (U.S. trained), were tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets and arrested without warrants. We must stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Borinquen. This attack on Latinxs’ poor and working-class people is unacceptable, and we cannot take it sitting down. The time for the people to unite to fight back against the rich ruling class is long overdue. As many Boricuas say, “Pa’lante por siempre!” (Always forward!)

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Puerto Ricans Still Left in the Dark

By Ashlee Pintos

Beginning on September 22nd, 2017, a modern colony of the “greatest country in the world” went into complete darkness. The small island of Puerto Rico with its 3.4 million citizens suffered in isolation while Hurricane Maria ravaged the entire country. It was not until day 4 or 5 that the millions of anxious Puerto Ricans living in the states were able to hear any information about their loved ones.

The government has declared only 48 deaths as direct results of the hurricane. However, The U.S. is only counting deaths directly related to the storm itself and does not address the hundreds of deaths caused by the failure of the U.S. government to help the island during Maria’s aftermath. There have actually been reports of over 450 deaths, island wide, with 69 people reported missing. Many of the island’s hospitals are not functioning at full capacity: they are running out of medications and fuel for their generators. This has resulted in hundreds of deaths from a lack of medication, oxygen tanks, and the sanitation that electricity provides to prevent the spread of disease. Relief resources are not being distributed to the island’s remote villages. Instead, the U.S. immediately began the militarization of the island, sending in hundreds of police and military officials.

After almost 2 weeks, Trump finally visited the capital of San Juan, the epicenter of the tourism industry and site of his own personal investments. He has not addressed the villages where dead bodies of humans and livestock have yet to be moved, there is no running water or electricity, and people are desperate for food, clean water, cash, and gasoline. One of his first responses to this catastrophic event was to acknowledge the island’s illegitimate debt of $74 billion and remark that the island is throwing the “budget out of whack.” But that debt has been caused by over 100 years of abuse by the U.S., and compared to state debts such as New York at $143 billion, Puerto Rico’s debt is manageable. Not to mention, the U.S. military budget is well over $800 billion, a figure that could pay PR’s debt 10 times over. Puerto Rico’s debt should be pardoned and the island should be granted liberation!

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Baton Rouge Flooding

You bailed out the banks, now bail out the workers 100%!

By Alex Quintero

The natural disaster that struck Baton Rouge was a flashback of the cataclysmic events of Hurricane Katrina, and in much of the same way the government has reacted with little to no disaster relief at all.

The U.S. Spent close to $16 trillion of public money to bail out the banks in the 2008 market crash. One trillion dollars a year goes to our military budget profiting those in the business of making war. But when it comes to bailing out the people of Louisiana, especially in the Black community, FEMA gives very little. This was the case in New Orleans and now our sisters and brothers of the working class in many parishes in Louisiana are devastated.

110,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. Almost all applied for FEMA. But FEMA only gives a $33,000 max grant  (and usually much less) if the victim can provide paperwork that may have been lost in the floods, Only 12% had flood insurance because these areas were not known to flood before. Also, many people have already been denied, especially in the African American neighborhoods in Baton Rouge.

There has also been a loss of job income, businesses destroyed, and cars demolished. Immediate unemployment assistance is needed.

Disaster capitalists like contractors are “hiring” undocumented workers so they can under-pay or con them out of pay altogether. Meanwhile, thousands of workers are now out of jobs. There even was a fatal bus crash of an unlicensed immigrant driver as its consequence. While the driver was jailed, we say jail the contractor.

This is why workers need to be for legalizing immigrants so these workers, who are only trying to feed their families, cannot be taken advantage of and there is no incentive not to hire all workers where there is high unemployment like in the Black community.  Louisiana legislators should call an emergency session to cut corporate tax breaks and help the flood victims.