People Before Profit blog

25,000 march for public education in Puerto Rico

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:19:00 +0000

After showing its strength with a march of 25,000 teachers and their supporters Feb. 17, the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers (FMPR) has been able to make progress toward a new labor agreement, averting for the moment a nationwide work stoppage that had been threatened for Feb. 19.

FMPR officials said agreement had been reached on some of the teachers’ demands. But they cautioned that the union was on “stand-by mode,” and teachers and their strike committees should be ready to hit the picket lines on a moment’s notice.

A number of independent Puerto Rican public sector unions, the Teamsters, and pro independence and civic organizations participated in support of the teachers.

The union’s executive committee met at dawn Feb. 19, after a 14-hour marathon negotiating session the day before, and agreed not to call the teachers out on strike. The leadership had been authorized to call a strike last November when 7,000 teachers voted unanimously during the union’s General Assembly to ratify a proposal from the 1,200 member Delegates Assembly.

FMPR President Rafael Feliciano had told participants in the Feb. 17 “March for Dignity and Public Education” that if there were no signed agreement or substantial progress by Feb. 19, the government would “face the anger of the faculty.”

Feliciano spelled out an agenda for going forward, including no charter schools, class size limits, health and safety guarantees for teachers and students, and improvements in wages and the health care plan.

The week before, the union had rejected Secretary of Education Rafael Aragunde’s proposal to negotiate Feb. 19 if there were no strike, calling the move a delaying tactic since Aragunde had “had 27 months to negotiate in good faith.” The FMPR called for negotiations Feb. 18 or there would be a strike the next day.

Besides the march and the union’s commitment to strike despite a Puerto Rican law banning public employee strikes, the union had a number of other victories and actions which put pressure on the Department of Public Education.

The week before, an appeals court had issued a temporary injunction against the decertification of the union. The decertification last month by the Public Service Labor Relations Commission resulted from charges the Secretary of Education filed against the union for having taken a strike vote. The FMPR appealed based on the Puerto Rican Constitution’s Bill of Rights which guarantees the right to join a union, strike and picket.

Then came a statement during a radio interview by Lemuel Soto, mayor of Arecibo, the sixth most populous municipality, that he supported the teachers and would not deploy the municipal police in case of a strike. “They can count on my support, with all my cooperation,” Soto said, adding, “It is the responsibility of the Secretary of Education and the central government, who are responsible for what is happening.” Arecibo has 1,800 teachers.

By contrast, on the same day when the mayor of Puerto Rico’s third largest city, Caguas, said he would do everything in his power to break the strike, he was met with a protest of hundreds of teachers, students and parents. Puerto Rican Gov. Anibal Acevedo has also been plagued by pickets of teachers and their supporters during the last few days.

j.a.cruz@comcast.net

U.S. labor leaders to Bush: No trade deal with murderers

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:54:00 +0000

Top labor leaders ended a trip to Colombia Feb. 13 by telling that country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, American unions will not support the U.S.–Colombia Free Trade Agreement until the killing of union members by right-wing death squads there is put to a stop.

The American labor leaders found, during their two day trip to Colombia, that trade unionists operate in a climate of fear in that country where 38 of them were murdered in 2007 and eight more, almost one per week, have been murdered since Jan. 1, 2008. President Bush demanded in his recent State of the Union speech that Congress approve the trade agreement with Colombia.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson, Communication Workers of America President Larry Cohen and United Steelworkers counsel Dan Kovalik met for two days with Colombian labor leaders, International Labor Organization representatives in Colombia and elected leaders including President Uribe.

They found the Colombian government has systematically undermined union members’ rights while exerting little efforts to address the murders of Colombian trade unionists.

One of the most recent of these murders was the killing of Yebrain Suarez, 32, a leader in Colombia’s corrections officers union. He was shot to death Jan. 28 in the doorway of his home as he returned from a day at work

Dan Kovalik told the People’s Weekly World: “Even without the killings, this trade agreement is a disaster for U.S. workers and for the people in Colombia. In America it will speed up the exporting of jobs, and it will hurt Colombians because they will be flooded with cheap food sent in by powerful multinational corporations. This will destroy their main crop, rice, and impoverish and dislocate millions, exactly what happened with the so called free trade agreement in Mexico.

“Massive dislocation of people like that then contributes to huge numbers of people being forced to migrate out of their countries,” Kovalik indicated.

He took issue with claims by the Bush administration that it was time to pass the trade agreement because the number of murders of trade unionists is smaller now than in previous years when hundreds were killed each year.

“This is only because there are fewer left to kill,” Kovalik declared. “The death squads go after the unionists who operate among the one percent of the workers who have collective bargaining rights and that number is going down. The total unionized work force is four percent but only that one percent have collective bargaining rights.”

Kovalik was optimistic about labor’s fight to keep the trade agreement with Colombia from becoming law. He said the unions have commitments from the Democratic House leadership to keep the measure from coming up for a vote and that labor intends to hold them to that commitment. He said both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidates, oppose the measure and that John McCain, the Republican candidate supports the measure.

Chavez-Thompson said, “The meeting with President Uribe was important to send a strong message of solidarity with the Colombian unions. Our job here is to support them in their struggle to rebuild the union movement after decades of violence and the steady erosion of legal rights.”

The American labor leaders met with leaders of the major Colombian labor federations who told them they were opposed to the trade agreement because of both the attacks on trade unionists and the harmful effects the deal would have on Colombian workers.

The Colombian government has a consistent policy of union busting. Colombian courts have ordered the Uribe government to reinstate with back pay oil workers who struck recently. The government refuses to obey the court order.

CWA’s Cohen commented on the small percentage of Colombian workers who have union contracts: “It is the lowest rate in the hemisphere, and among the worst in the world. They are killing the unions, not just the union leaders.”

After Colombia, the Philippines had the next highest rate of murdered trade unionists, with 33 murdered last year. There also were 201 death threats against trade unionists in 2007.

Kovalik, who had travelled to Colombia previously, said the lack of union rights in Colombia is one of a number of reasons that everyone should be concerned about the large amount of military aid that the United States regularly gives to that country.

The U.S. labor leaders participated in a vigil organized by the Colombian unions.

Chavez-Thompson, said at the event, “We are here to pay homage to the thousands of Colombian trade unionists who sacrificed their lives for what they believed in. And we are here to celebrate their lives, because they died to better the lives of their sisters and brothers, in Colombia and throughout the world.”

jwojcik@pww.org

Fear of the German left affects defense policy

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:54:00 +0000

What a difference a party on the left can have!

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, at the annual International Security Conference in Munich stepped up pressure on Germany to send more troops to Afghanistan and commit them to active fighting not only in the currently more peaceful north but in the battle-ridden south as well. US troops are in short supply.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung categorically said, “No. Not us.” Or at least, “Not just now, anyway, certainly not until October, or if at all, then only in emergencies.” He insisted, “We can’t overturn the decisions and limitations imposed by the Bundestag.”

Gates doesn’t quite understand that. His president in Washington has never given a tinker’s damn for what Congress says – on the rare occasions when it hasn’t kowtowed to him. So why should Jung worry?

Of course, basically, Defense Minister Jung wouldn’t give two euros for the Bundestag’s opinion either. And in the past the governing coalition, whether it consisted of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats or of Social Democrats and Greens, has almost always played “follow the leader” with Washington. The one exception was during the second Iraq war, when Gerhard Schroeder wanted to win the election so desperately that he suddenly began to talk like a king of peace. But even then Rumsfeld’s warriors were permitted to use every military facility in Germany – and are still using the country as its main base for the war against the Iraqis.

But this time the situation has changed. For years, the small PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) was confined almost entirely to the five eastern provinces of Germany, the former German Democratic Republic, and to some extent to Berlin. It had hardly a tiny toe hold in the far more populous ten western provinces, limiting it to the role of a rarely-needed extra in a b-movie.

But then it merged with a small but dynamic new West German party, made up largely of disgusted ex-members of the Social Democrats and Greens, who rejected the miserable anti-social, pro-corporate and “growing military readiness” positions of both their parties. Add to this mix, people’s rapidly-growing dissatisfaction with the economy. The new merged party started chalking up gains in both the west and the east.

The big fear of the four ruling parties (the fourth was the right-wing business party FDP (the Free Democrats), was that this new party, calling itself Die Linke, or The Left, might some day seep out of its east German ghetto and influence politics in the west.

And this is just what happened! Last spring it won seven seats in the city-state of Bremen. Then came Lower Saxony, where the Christian Democrats had a popular candidate. The Social Democrat got walloped – and the Left won eleven seats, creating, for the first time, a genuine opposition. In the state of Hesse (where Frankfurt/Main is located), a far more bitter battle was waged. The big news, however, was the 5.1 percent vote for the Left, just barely enough to get into the provincial parliament with seven seats, but enough to pull the bottom card from a shaky house of cards.

The next provincial elections are on February 24th in Hamburg. The polls now give the Left about ten percent. It seems almost inevitable that the Left will make it into the fourth West German legislature, with more votes coming up next year.

Jung’s tough words about obeying the will of the Bundestag and not sending more troops to Afghanistan was undoubtedly pronounced with an eye on the coming elections in Hamburg, for the word has been spreading that the Left is the only party which opposes military actions by German soldiers anywhere on the globe – a position reflecting the will of perhaps 70 percent or more of the German population.

The powerful old forces of 20th century Germany and their offspring, are striving to make Germany a world power once again – not just economically but militarily as well, and their slogan, coined by the last Social Democratic Minister of Defense, was “”the boundaries of our security requirements lie in the Hindu Kush” – in Afghanistan, and elsewhere. And thus far, only the Left has said No.

Important as provincial elections can be in German politics, no one is forgetting that the next national elections are in the autumn of 2009. The Left is not untroubled by inner disputes regarding strategy and direction. One important disagreement concerns the question of joining a coalition with the Social Democrats or Greens, a policy some members reject completely. But it is unquestioned that the Left not only opposes foreign military intervention but also calls for a minimum wage, for preserving the weakening medical insurance system, for winning back free education, and saving the unemployed from compulsory, menial jobs at starvation wages. It also calls for ending discrimination against immigrant minorities. The media strive daily to suppress these facts. Still, the worst fear of the powers-that-be are becoming reality. The Left, possibly now the third biggest party in all Germany, can no longer be ignored, and the tough-sounding rejection of Robert Gates’ demands by the Defense Minister in Munich is the clearest proof of this.

In sanctuary, Mexican mother fights for dignity

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:46:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Josué, 14, Juan, 11 and Paloma, 9, live with their grandmother in a small rural town in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. They have not seen their mother, Flor Crisostomo, 28, since she crossed the Arizona desert in June 2000, to find work in the U.S. so she could support them.

Crisostomo was arrested during a 2006 immigration raid at a pallet-making company here. After two years of exhaustive legal appeals, Homeland Security ordered her to return to Mexico by Jan. 28. But she decided to take sanctuary at the Adalberto United Methodist Church on the city’s northwest side.

“I came here seven years ago because NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) made it impossible to feed my children in my hometown and that situation has only gotten worse,” Crisostomo told the World, speaking in Spanish.

She said the Mexican government predicts that with the final reduction of tariffs on corn, beans, sugar and powdered milk under NAFTA policies, as many as a million more out-of-work Mexican farmers will try crossing the deadly U.S.-Mexican border to find work.

“I am not leaving. I am taking a stand of civil disobedience,” Crisostomo said. “I believe with all my heart that the U.S. and Mexico must end the system of exploiting undocumented labor.

“The raids and deportations make undocumented workers live in fear,” she added. “The no-match letters force us into worse jobs. But even a poor job here is better than no job.”

(The Social Security Administration mails no-match letters to employers, stating that an employee’s social security number does not match SSA’s records. Many result from clerical error; they are not cause for firings.)

Crisostomo’s experience illustrates a root problem of the current immigration system. At the same time Homeland Security and anti-immigrant and anti-worker laws make it harder for undocumented workers to survive here, NAFTA’s policies have devastated the rural economies of Mexico, putting family farmers out of work. (see related story on page 4)

Elvira Arellano also stood up for immigrant rights and for her U.S. citizen son. She was in sanctuary at the same church for a year before she was deported back to Mexico last summer. She and Crisostomo are good friends.

“It’s a very important time to fight for immigration reform during election time,” Arellano said, in a phone interview, speaking in spanish from Mexico. She added that people need to go out and vote for change so Congress and the next president can act on immigration reform.

“Flor is a part of my family and is a very important person who was there for me while I was in sanctuary,” said Arellano. “She is a mother who has sacrificed a lot for her children despite all the difficulties. We in Mexico are in solidarity with her, we wish her courage and we are praying for her and all the undocumented workers in the U.S.”

Crisostomo hopes that the U.S. and Mexico will realize one way to fix the broken immigration laws and make the borders safe and secure is to renegotiate NAFTA and other financial agreements that have destroyed local economies.

She said she is fighting for all immigrant families in the U.S. “I will not be a symbol of fear to spread among my people. I hope that adding my grain of sand to the struggle will help to get the U.S. Congress to act now,” she said.

Crisostomo knows that by taking this action there is little chance that she will ever achieve legal status to stay in the U.S.

“I may face time in prison. But when I do return to my children, I will not return, as so many have, empty-handed and unable to provide for them. I will be able to give them the only thing I can pass on to them: My dignity.”

plozano@pww.org

Supporters of Flor Crisostomo can make a donation by sending a check to

Adalberto United Methodist Church

2716 W. Division St.

Chicago, IL 60622.

Belligerents and terrorists are different

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:04:00 +0000

Commentary

A 60-year sentence handed down Jan. 28 to Ricardo Palmera, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), by a U.S. judge demonstrates abuse of the terrorist designation. In January 2004, the CIA and local police captured Palmera in Ecuador, where he had been negotiating the release of FARC and Colombian government hostages with a UN official. The FARC, with 16,000 combatants, has engaged oligarchic Colombian governments since 1964.

Palmera, known as Simon Trinidad, spent a year in jail in Colombia and on Dec. 31 was extradited to the United States. In July a federal court convicted him of participating in a hostage-taking conspiracy to seize U.S. mercenaries. Both Palmera and outside observers claim he neither met them nor planned their capture. His main crime, according to U.S. lawyer Paul Wolf, was affiliation with a terrorist organization.

Wolf states that Palmera’s extradition, conviction and sentencing violate Colombian sovereignty. Palmera’s penalty did not exist prior to 2004 when the USAID retooled the Colombian penal code to increase maximum sentences from 40 to 60 years.

The Palmera case illustrates the advantage a superpower derives from labeling foes as terrorists. Jointly with client states, the U.S. government gains the unimpeded ability to make war against revolutionaries and national liberation movements. International norms no longer apply. One country disposes of selected internal enemies of another.

Recent publicity on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s ties to drug traffickers and paramilitaries suggests that Colombia’s puppet elite shares Washington’s propensity for excess and stopping at nothing.

In 2004, Newsweek published a 1991 declassified U.S intelligence report stating that President Uribe once “worked for the Medellin Cartel and is a close friend of Pablo Escobar.” The document listed 104 lieutenants of the drug impresario, Uribe’s name appearing as number 82.

Virginia Vallejo, Escobar’s former mistress, published her memoirs last year. She quotes Escobar: “My business is transport and has one foundation — landing fields and planes and helicopters. That great guy (Uribe) dispensed for us dozens of licenses for airfields and hundreds for aircraft.” Uribe was then Civil Aeronautics head for Antioquia State.

In his “Unauthorized Biography,” Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras claimed that as governor of Antioquia in 1995-97, Uribe was the “driving force” behind the paramilitary Convivir Brigades, a connection going back to the 1980s, according to Aporrea.org. In a press conference last year, Senator Gustavo Petro noted paramilitary use of Uribe family farms, his brother Santiago’s role as paramilitary leader, and participation of state helicopters in paramilitary massacres.

Legal scholars say belligerency status brings international law to bear upon internal armed conflicts, gives rebels groups a quasi-government status, and requires rebels to abide by Geneva protocols. But belligerency status is also defined, even legitimized, through the causes that make insurgents fight.

Writing Jan. 22 for rebelion.org, Colombian jurist Carlos Alberto Ruiz suggests that “what happens every week” to poor people does more to rationalize Colombian insurgent movements than mere judicial categories. He points to “children dying of malnutrition and curable sicknesses, or the adults who die abandoned.” He finds “daily evidence of young people with no future. There are 18 million adolescents, six million live in poverty; two million, in extreme poverty.”

Ruiz describes the marriage Jan. 19 in Cartegena de Indias of Andrés Santo Domingo and Lauren Davis, an editor of New York’s Vogue Magazine. Streets around the cathedral were closed. The rich, powerful, and stylish arrived by the hundreds. Forbes magazine lists Julio Mario Santo Domingo, father of the groom, as Colombia’s richest man, worth $4.5 billion.

“A few hundreds of meters away,” writes Ruiz, “child prostitutes wait.” All the while, “hundreds of thousands of the displaced, the poor, the Blacks, the mulattos, and the forgotten barely survive and wait.”

He describes Colombia’s situation as “ignominious. Armed conflict contesting the status quo is rejected and origins of the war are not confronted.” He calls for “validation of the causes and political perspective that were the genesis of the resistance and the armed conflict.”

atwhit @roadrunner.com