BY RON RICHARDS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A strike by the workers of the
University of Puerto Rico (UPR) closed the 11 campuses of the
school November 4-5. The Brotherhood of Non-Teaching Employees
(HEEND) went on to strike to demand a union shop where all
workers covered by the collective bargaining unit would have to
join the union. The strike was settled with an agreement that
all workers will be in the union automatically unless they
state in writing that they do not wish to join.
Before dawn on November 4 the HEEND put up pickets at all entrances to the 11 campuses. The HEEND has about 3,200 members. Some 800 people are covered by the collective bargaining agreement but are not members. There are at least another 1,200 workers who are in other unions or who are not unionized.
By 6:30 a.m. November 4 there were about 50 people in front of the main gate of the Río Piedras campus. Supporters of the strike included Rafael Bernabe, president of the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors and vice president of the Teachers Federation Jesus Delgado. A group of students were painting signs in support of the strike. Throughout the action there were no classes and few people tried to cross. One professor arrived about 8:00 a.m. and said that to be paid he had to sign in. After talking to the strikers, he left without crossing the picket line.
UPR president Norman Maldonado had announced a no- confrontation policy ahead of time. The government of Puerto Rico is not anxious to repeat the negative publicity it received earlier this year during the telephone workers strike against the sell-off of the state-owned phone company. Life magazine, for instance, ran a photograph of telephone striker who had been beaten and dragged by police, leaving a bloody trail, with a women screaming over the unconscious worker.
Sonia Reyes, president of HEEND, told the Militant the union is not demanding that only members of the union could be hired, but rather a union shop where everybody would have to join the union once they were hired. She said that the union has been ready to negotiate and the UPR president Maldonado provoked the strike. After the telephone strike, she said that the union movement was "more united. We understand that we have the support of other union organizations."
At first Maldonado did not object to the idea of a union shop, later he claimed that it was illegal. The pro- independence weekly Claridad ran a legal analysis that showed the law under which the HEEND is recognized neither allows nor prohibits a union shop.
The law allows workers at public corporations like the telephone, water, and electricity utilities to have unions, but other public workers are only allowed to have associations that do not have all the rights of unions. In reality the associations or brotherhoods have fought to be treated like unions and have largely erased the differences in the original laws.
The day before the strike the Student Council called an assembly of the students who attend the classes at Río Piedras. The television news showed a heated debate, as the elected student government leadership argued that the 1,000 students at the meeting were not representative enough of the 20,000 students to officially vote on supporting the strike. They said that they were supportive of the workers, but that the meeting did not have a quorum. After they left several hundred students remained and formed an ad hoc committee to support the striking workers.
After two days of picketing, an agreement was reached the evening of November 5 and the picket lines came down. Classes were held on November 6, but due to the lateness of the agreement attendance was light. The agreement says that all members of the bargaining unit will be members of the union unless they file a written document declining membership.