'Puerto Rico had never seen anything like it:' the meaning of the general strike - includes related article on Puerto Rico's economy

Progressive, The, Sept, 1998 by Juan Gonzalez

Late on the morning of July 8, across the road from the main gate to the Isla Grande port authority complex in San Juan, Roberto Rosa, president of one of Puerto Rico's dock huddled with a few of his assistants to talk over their next move. As they met, several hundred striking dock workers and teamsters kept up a rhythmic picket line, replete with music and congas, under a torrid sun. The pickets were celebrating: None of the 5,000 people who normally work in Isla Grande had crossed the line.

"The teachers need our help over at the Department of Education," one aide told Rosa. "They say some scabs may try to get across their line."

"No," Rosa said. "We've got to cover Navieras [the huge truck depot about two miles away]. "Get four carloads over there to reinforce the line. And remember, no truck gets through."

It was the second day of a stunning forty-eight-hour general strike that paralyzed this island of 3.8 million and reverberated all the way to Washington, D.C., and Wall Street.

Puerto Rico had never seen anything like it. Nor had any other part of the United States, for that matter. You'd have to go back to the 1930s to find a general strike in even a single U.S. city. But this was happening in every town on this island of U.S. citizens.

More than half a million workers and students joined the strike, according to organizers. They shut down most government offices, universities, the ports, public buses, taxis, and many private businesses.

The protest was so effective that even before it began virtually every major shopping mall on the island announced it was closing for the duration.

The depth and militancy of the protest became clear on the first day, when the strikers staged a seven-hour blockade and engaged in a stand-off with riot police at the entrance to the Munoz Marin International Airport. That surprise move--along with wire-service photos of American tourists forced to carry their own baggage along the highway in the hot sun--prompted the major U.S. media to scamper belatedly to the island to cover an issue they had uniformly ignored.

This was no typical protest over wages or high unemployment. The general strike aimed to stop the $1.9 billion sale of the government-owned Puerto Rico Telephone Company to a consortium headed by Connecticut-based GTE Corp.

As such, it was one of the most startling blows any labor movement has struck in recent years against neoliberal economic policies in the Third World. From Brazil and Mexico to Bulgaria and Poland, countries have stampeded to sell off public companies at fire-sale prices. Often, these moves have sparked protests. In Brazil, the sale in July of the government-owned telephone company has become a major issue in this fall's presidential campaign.

Nowhere have the protests been more vocal than in Puerto Rico.

Why would half a million people lose two days' pay in hopes of stopping the sale of their phone company? Certainly, few of us in the United States feel any similar loyalty to our local Baby Bell.

But the Puerto Rico Telephone Company is more than a company. It is a symbol of Puerto Rican achievement. For decades, ever since it was nationalized in 1974 from the old ITT corporation, the company has been the pride and joy of islanders, much as the oil industry is to Mexicans.

When ITT ran it, phone service was available only to the well-to-do in the cities, and it was notoriously unreliable. ITT would regularly shift obsolete equipment from its subsidiaries in Chile and other Latin American countries to Puerto Rico.

Fed up with the terrible service, former Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon bought the company from ITT. Today, Puerto Rico Telephone is so profitable that it contributes $100 million a year to the government, provides free service to all public schools, and helps subsidize both public television and radio.

In addition, the company provides enormous support to civic associations. From the local Little League manager who needs uniforms for his kids to the block association that needs a sponsor for its annual event, Puerto Ricans have come to depend on La Telefonica for assistance.

And the company is no small operation. It is the twelfth largest in the United States, with operating revenues in 1996 of $1.2 billion. The system is as modern as any in the United States, with 1.2 million digital lines, 23,000 pay phones, 169,000 cellular customers, and 204,000 beeper clients. A call by pay phone still costs only ten cents.

Compared to the island's electrical and water systems, which perpetually fall victim to breakdowns, the telephone lines are very reliable, operating even in hurricanes.

The telephone company has given Puerto Ricans bragging rights: Here is something they do better than in the states. It's a symbol of the deep national pride Puerto Ricans retain even after decades of being American citizens.

The island's current governor, Pedro Rossello, is a fervent advocate of statehood, and the fight over Puerto Rico's political status forms a backdrop to the telephone strike (see sidebar). For several years, Rossello has been trying everything he can--and that includes worshiping the private sector--to persuade Republicans in Congress that Puerto Rico is fully American. Before the annual U.S. governors' conference last year, which was held on the island, Rossello insisted that Puerto Rico was not a nation. The first allegiance of all Puerto Ricans, he said, was to the United States. Of course, few Puerto Ricans need to have their patriotism questioned; Puerto Ricans have fought in every American war this century. His speech, however, created a furor because he seemed to be denying the sense of nationhood that many Puerto Ricans still feel. As a result, more than 80,000 people protested outside the conference under the banner WE ARE A NATION.