BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -Chants of "Huelga! Huelga!" (Strike! Strike!) thundered at dawn as close to 1,000 unionists, waving signs and Puerto Rican flags, blocked the highway entrance to the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport here July 7. It was the first day of a 48-hour general strike in this Caribbean nation and U.S. colony.

A coalition of about 50 trade unions organized the island-wide strike, involving hundreds of thousands of workers, to support striking telephone workers in their fight to oppose the sale of the state-owned Puerto Rico Telephone Co. to a private consortium led by U.S. telecommunications giant GTE.

They also protested the government's plans to sell other state-owned enterprises to capitalist investors.

It was the first strike of this magnitude in Puerto Rico since the 1930s. Besides affecting air traffic at both the international and commuter airports in this city, unionists paralyzed the docks, city buses, a few factories, banks, major shopping centers, university campuses, and government offices. Picket lines went up throughout San Juan and other cities.

The largest contingent of the strikers blocking access to the international airport was from the water and sanitation workers union UIA. They were joined by members of the Union of Dock Employees (UDEM), port authority employees (HEO), Teamsters, the Independent Union of Airport Workers (UITA), the electrical workers union UTIER, restaurant workers, airport firefighters, and other unions.

Hundreds of pickets were young workers, many in their early 20s, who gave the protest a festive, even exuberant air. "And you thought the strike would never come -well, the strike has now arrived!" the unionists sang over and over, to the accompaniment of tambourines and a trumpet. "Struggle yes, surrender no!" was a popular chant.

In response, the government deployed 200 heavily armed riot cops to the scene, creating a tense standoff. Union officials eventually negotiated the withdrawal of the cops, to cheers from the workers. Having disrupted air and highway traffic for four hours, the unionists moved on to other picket sites in the city.

`We showed power of labor movement'
"The general strike was a total success," said Ricardo Otero, 42, a splicer at the phone company and member of the Independent Union of Telephone Workers (UIET), the following day. "We showed the power of the labor movement by shutting industries and commerce. We dealt a blow to the governor and proved he [Rosselló] can't ignore the people's will by selling the telephone company."

Otero was speaking to a Militant reporter at the closing rally at 1500 Roosevelt Avenue, the phone company's headquarters, where pickets have been up since the strike began July 18. Some 6,400 telephone workers around the country, belonging to the UIET and the Independent Brotherhood of Telephone Workers (HIETEL), are on strike.

"We achieved our objective, which was to paralyze the country," HIETEL president Annie Cruz emphasized at a rally at the end of the first day of the general strike. Whether or not the sale of the phone company is carried out, "we have unified the union movement." She reported that half a million workers took part in the strike nationwide.

Noting the international attention the strike has won, Cruz added, "Throughout the world it has been shown that the Puerto Rican people like democracy but are not a submissive people, and that here we are waging a struggle against privatizations that has taken place in other countries." She was referring to working-class struggles in many other countries, from Brazil to France, against the bosses' efforts to open up state-owned enterprises to capitalist investment and ownership, with the accompanying layoffs and assaults on unions.

In an interview at the union headquarters the day before, Cruz also pointed to expressions of international labor solidarity the telephone strikers have received, "especially in places where they have had experiences with privatizations such as Europe." The union reports getting messages of solidarity from France, Britain, Denmark, Japan, and Israel, among others. Cruz also pointed to solidarity picket lines in several U.S. cities including New York, Tampa, and Dallas.

Many workers taking part in the general strike said they were protesting plans by the administration of Gov. Pedro Rosselló to sell off other state-owned corporations. "If they sell the telephone company, what's next? It might be the Water Authority," remarked Carmen Ramos Sánchez, a member of the water and sanitation workers union who was blocking the highway near the airport together with hundreds of her co-workers. She added that her union's contract had expired in June and they were in negotiations that could be affected by the outcome of the labor battle over the phone company.

The government has already sold off some hospitals, hotels, a shipping company, a pineapple farm, and some prisons.

Other unionists pointed out that the economic crisis was fueling working-class anger. While in Puerto Rico, as in the United States, the economy is not yet in a downturn in the business cycle, the official unemployment rate in this U.S. colony is around 18 percent, and unofficial estimates range between 29 and 35 percent. Some towns, like Peñuelas, Juncos, and Las Piedras, have been hit by plant closures and have even higher jobless rates.

Worker after worker on the picket lines and protest caravans offered a similar response to the government's attempt to sell the telephone company. "It's our national patrimony. The telephone company belongs to us," said Edgardo López, 25, a Teamster on one of the mass picket lines that shut down the docks July 8. Adding insult to injury is the widespread view that the phone company is being sold at a giveaway price, as well as Rosselló's refusal to even discuss the issue with the unions, despite the fact that majority of public opinion is decisively opposed to the sale.

Lolita Lebrón cheered
At the July 8 labor rally capping the two-day general strike, the enthusiastic ovation that greeted Nationalist heroine Lolita Lebrón, who spent a quarter century in U.S. prisons for taking part in an armed attack on U.S. Congress in 1954, captured the outpouring of nationalist pride and resistance that has marked the struggle around the telephone strike. Her brief remarks brought cheers in the crowd of several thousand people when she evoked the figure of independence fighter Pedro Albizu Campos.

Speaking next, HIETEL president Cruz saluted Lebrón for "having defended our country in such an honorable manner."

Demonstrators responded with chants of "Puerto Rico cannot be sold - Puerto Rico must be defended!"

During the two days of the general strike, it was difficult to go a few blocks anywhere in San Juan without running into union picket lines or caravans of cars with drivers and passengers waving Puerto Rican flags.

Some of the biggest picket lines were at the electrical company and Water Authority. Both days, thousands of teachers massed at the Department of Education starting at 3:00 a.m., preventing anyone from entering or leaving. At one point, the cops provoked a scuffle when they tried to allow someone to cross the picket lines. Despite a deployment of 14,000 cops, the actions around the country were disciplined and mostly peaceful.

Several car caravans with workers from different unions cruised through the city streets, converging in the afternoon at 1500 Roosevelt Avenue. "I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't only union members that took part in the strike," said one telephone striker who asked that his name not be used because he is also a member of the National Guard. "When our caravan passed through the banking district, bank employees came out to applaud us. The same thing happened when we went by hospitals and other workplaces."

One driver had painted on his car window, "Temporary worker - I'm joining the strike - They can go to hell."

Faced with the prospect of mass pickets, all the branches of the Banco Popular shut down during the strike, as did the Plaza Las Américas and several other major shopping malls. Workers at the malls' fast food restaurants either joined the protest actions or took the days off. Banco Popular was targeted because it is the junior partner in GTE's majority bid for the telephone company.

In the city of Manatí and the San Juan suburb of Carolina, telephone workers and other unionists set up picket lines in front of pharmaceutical plants. United Auto Workers members at the Eli Lilly plant in Manatí honored the picket lines, and the Carolina plant was also disrupted for a while.

Labor mobilizations took place at more than a dozen cities around the island. The biggest were in Mayaguez and Ponce. In Mayaguez, hundreds of dock workers, teachers, health-care workers, and telephone workers shut down the Medical Center. The airport there was also affected by the strike. As in San Juan, students and professors blocked the entrances to the University of Puerto Rico.

The picket lines, caravans, and especially the rallies attracted thousands of high school and college youth. Many came with hand-painted signs, which expressed support for the strikers and making colorful remarks about Rosselló and his family. At the closing rally in San Juan, the Federation of Pro-Independence University Students (FUPI) had a sizable contingent.

A substantial number of the workers and students at the strike rallies expressed support for independence for Puerto Rico. Most pro-independence organizations were not prominent at the actions. At the closing July 8 rally, however, speakers included Rubén Berríos, leader of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, and Julio Muriente, president of the New Puerto Rican Independence Movement (NMIP).

Virulent big-business propaganda
The government and big-business media responded to the massive working-class outpouring with undisguised hatred. El Nuevo Día and the San Juan Star ran crude cartoons portraying strikers as monsters or terrorists. The telephone company, the police, and the ruling pro-statehood New Progressive Party bombarded the public with ads in the daily papers and radio stations making sensationalistic claims about thousands of alleged acts of sabotage against telephone lines. The virulent campaign, however, seems to have had little effect on working people, many of whom feel insulted by its coarse character.

Supporters of Rosselló were only able to mobilize a rally of a few dozen government employees. A handful of supervisory personnel held a counterpicket at the Isla Grande port complex, carrying a U.S. flag along with a Puerto Rican flag.

Meanwhile, leaders of the opposition Popular Democratic Party (PPD) have sought over the last few days to intervene in the labor actions. San Juan mayor and PPD figure Sila Calderón issued a pre-strike televised message expressing support for the telephone workers' demands against the sale of the state-owned company, although not supporting the strike as the PPD mayors of Ponce and Mayaguez did. PPD president Aníbal Acevedo gave a militant speech at the July 8 union rally, presenting himself as a supporter of the strikers and calling for a referendum on the sale of the company.  
 
 
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