Puerto Rican Teachers: "The Long Way is the Short Way"

Puerto Rican Teachers: "The Long Way is the Short Way"
Labor Notes Staff, February 26, 2009

Teachers in Puerto Rico defied a strike ban and embarked on an all-out fight for the life of their union in late February one year ago. The 10-day walk-out set in motion months of turmoil for the 40,000-member Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico. The government decertified the FMPR as punishment for the strike, and the Service Employees attempted a raid. How has their union survived? . . . ..
Story Body:
FMPR.270
Last February, nearly 25,000 teachers closed Puerto Rico's schools with a 10-day strike. The strike and ensuing fights peaked decades of slowly building momentum for a reform caucus.

One year ago, in late February, teachers in Puerto Rico defied a strike ban and embarked on an all-out fight for the life of their union.

The 10-day walk-out, which capped 27 months of fruitless negotiations, set in motion months of turmoil for the 40,000-member Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico. The government decertified the FMPR as punishment for the strike, and the Service Employees attempted a raid. In late October teachers were asked to vote between SEIU and “no union,” as the government barred FMPR from the ballot.

Responding to a campaign from what they saw as their legitimate union, teachers rejected SEIU’s bid by a 10-point margin, with 55 percent voting for “no union.”

Today FMPR continues to operate as a non-majority union—just as it did before 1998, when public sector collective bargaining was legalized on the island.

The teachers union has been led since 2003 by a reform caucus called CODEMI (Commitment, Democracy, Militancy). For decades the caucus built credibility by slowly nurturing leaders and encouraging action on the local level. Labor Notes spoke with FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez and Vice President Maria Melendez in New York to see how they did it.

Labor Notes: SEIU poured tremendous resources into this election, millions of dollars, even putting ads on TV. How were you able to win?

FMPR: SEIU spent between $22 and $24 million. We spent $65,000. You can have a lot of money for propaganda, but if you don’t have links with the local leadership, with teachers in the schools, you don’t really have the strength to destroy our union.

I think that the 2008 strike is very important to understanding the “no” vote. For over a year the union developed this strike, largely through volunteers. Our union is based in voluntary work.

We don’t have money but we have leaders at the grassroots of the union, and we have relationships with the community. SEIU and the government thought that our union was a traditional bureaucratic union, but they ran full-speed into a brick wall. That wall was the people, and their commitment to education and to the union.

Something else that helped us is the fact that when you got to the balloting center SEIU had lots of staff there. But they were not teachers. They didn’t know our reality. They could not respond to the questions of the teachers.

LN: Since the 1960s public sector workers have been able to organize non-majority unions. How did you build a local structure?

FMPR: We’ve had a caucus inside the union since 1971. In the ‘80s our caucus targeted the development of local unions, each about 400 to 500 teachers. This is big, but it still permits direct contact between the local leadership and teachers in the schools.

Even when the union was controlled by a bureaucratic leadership, we still had space in the local union, an autonomous space to develop a rank-and-file leadership.

In our union the locals have lots of autonomy. They can call strikes, develop their own educational workshops, have their own newspapers. They meet with their bosses and Department of Education officials. Sometimes they negotiate local agreements. And the local unions are very democratic. The teachers directly elect the leaders every two years.

It’s difficult. Some local unions are strong, some of them are weak. But when we developed the strike, in every place that we have a strong local union, we had a strong strike.

At the top, people don’t have direct contact. You need local leadership to push, to maintain accountability, to create checks and balances.

Sometimes the national leadership loses their way. The local structure permits the rank-and-file leadership to continue. We can be in the newspaper everyday, but if the local union doesn’t have a real presence, then the union is weak.

LN: The community’s been very important in your struggles. How are they involved?

FMPR: In our strike, half of the teachers were on strike, but something like 95 percent of the schools were closed. That’s because in many schools, the parents and students struck. They become part of the process.

We’ve been building this relationship with the community since 2003, using many little strikes and struggles to support parents’ issues, like smaller classes, asbestos removal in schools, and water fountains and supplies in schools.

Through all this we’ve developed an internal debate, and had many discussions. Some of the teachers don’t want to support parents. They think they are an elite. Some of the teachers don’t want to fight back. They think the union should be a service union. But that is part of the struggle, and in the process of the strike we changed the mentality. That is one of the most important things about the strike.

A second thing to stress is that this was a women’s strike. Most of the strikers, something like 75 percent, were women who have to fight with their husbands before fighting against their bosses. That is also an important part of changing Puerto Rican society.

LN: How did you keep people committed to changing the union?

FMPR: It started when all the militant, pro-democratic members formed the CODEMI caucus (Commitment, Democracy, and Militancy). We developed a program, which was important because when somebody got elected they had to work to achieve our program. In the 1980s the caucus started by pushing amendments to the union’s by-laws to develop local unions. We concentrated our work in the local level.

Our caucus worked with a long-term view. For 10 years nobody was elected onto the national leadership of the union. We lost two national elections before our victory in 2003. But the group stayed alive, working every day. It didn’t disappear when the election was finished.

Then, just before the election of 2003 our health insurance fund went bankrupt. The leadership lost something like $43 million. It was a real crisis, and in that moment people decided now is the time to support CODEMI.

Early on, we passed an important amendment that our organizers must be elected teachers. Before that, organizers were selected by the leadership. When we made this change, that staff and organizers must be teachers on leave of absence working for the union—but elected locally, that was very important: The national executive committee had direct contact with the base.

The organizer has to be accountable to the locals, and at the same time the president doesn’t have the power to dismiss the organizers.

Sometimes an organizer doesn’t do his work. That is very difficult for us, because we cannot throw out organizers. We have to wait until his local and his people understand that he is not doing the work and they make a move.

If we don’t have a real democratic process, then everything can be torn down. That has happened many times. Democracy is difficult, but we don’t have another option.

LN: How do you keep yourself honest?

FMPR: We don’t ask our members to do anything that we don’t do. We go to picket lines and sometimes the police arrest us. People have to see us working, too, not just showing up right before a march begins or the cameras start rolling. That is how people develop confidence in you, and in themselves.

We are also respectful of our opposition. When we run a meeting, people get up and say what they want. They have the right to do that. That way people learn how to work with differences and to understand that a different point of view is good, because that is the core of the living organization. The opposition makes us more productive.
Source URL:
http://labornotes.org/node/2125

Puerto Rico Teachers' Union Trounces SEIU

Nov 24 2008
Micah Landau

The Puerto Rican Federation of Teachers (FMPR) has done the near-impossible: Solidly defeating one of the world’s most powerful labor organizations in an election for representation of Puerto Rico’s 42,000 public school teachers.

"The FMPR does not 'give in,' it struggles. Vote no!" (By FMPR Support Committee)

In results announced on October 23, only about a third of teachers voted in favor of representation by the U.S.-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The big plurality to reject affiliation is a stunning defeat for SEIU's President Andy Stern and the rest of the union's international leadership.

The conflict between the two organizations, which began almost a year ago, grew increasingly intense, culminating in the recent elections. Last fall, before SEIU stepped onto the scene, members of the FMPR voted at a mass meeting of more than 7,000 members to authorize a strike. The teachers had suffered through more than two years without a contract and had had enough. In November 2007, they gave Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Education Rafael Aragunde an ultimatum: “Contract or Strike!”

The response of the government was swift and unusually harsh. In January 2008, before the teachers had even begun their strike, the local Public Sector Labor Relations Commission and the island's governor, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, unilaterally decertified their union, invoking Puerto Rico's Law 45, which grants public employees the right to bargain collectively but denies them the right to strike.

Enter SEIU

While the leadership of the FMPR prepared to fight their decertification in court and the union’s rank-and-file prepared to fight for their contract demands in the street, SEIU’s international leadership was busy rolling out its own plans for Puerto Rico’s teachers. As Juan Gonzalez subsequently revealed in the New York Daily News, Dennis Rivera, an SEIU international vice-president and one-time member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, had met secretly with Acevedo Vilá on multiple occasions while negotiations between the island’s government and the FMPR were ongoing. As reported by Gonzalez, the governor told Rivera prior to the strike that the Federation is “yours to take.”

The SEIU's next move revealed its intention to undermine the FMPR. Almost simultaneously with the FMPR’s decertification, SEIU announced the affiliation of the Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR), which is the island’s association of school principals and supervisors—and itself a longtime rival of the Federation. The SEIU now sought to replace the Federation with an offshoot of its new affiliate, the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union (SPM).

At a time when the leadership of SEIU should have expressed its solidarity with the striking teachers, Stern, Rivera, and their allies chose instead to strike a deal with the government-employer by forging a company union in an effort to pull the rug from beneath the feet of the FMPR. Democratic reformers and rank-and-file activists in the labor movement have roundly criticized Stern’s top-down approach to unionism and his strategy of union-member accretion at all costs, but his bid to raid the FMPR reaches new lows. Gonzalez called the raid “a shameful betrayal of solidarity.” Labor journalist Steve Early told Democracy Now! that the raid “tarnish[ed] the image, not only of SEIU, but all unions.”

At a time when the labor movement is extremely weak, it is imperative that unions be able to count on the support of other unions in fighting their real enemy: the boss. Apparently, however, this logic is lost on the leadership of the SEIU. Rather than remaining true to their commitment to organize the unorganized, they opted in Puerto Rico for a policy of reorganizing the already organized. The SEIU's actions in Puerto Rico do little for either the strength or the unity of an already fractious labor movement, whether on the island or the mainland.

Teachers Triumphant

Despite the betrayal of SEIU’s leadership and their best efforts to undermine the FMPR, the Federation has persevered. Not only did the Federation win several important concessions from Acevedo Vilá and Aragunde in their February 2008 strike, but it also managed a dramatic defeat of the SEIU in their recent head-on confrontation in the elections for representation.

The SEIU-affiliated Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union (SPM) was roundly defeated in the elections. (By FMPR Support Committee)

The strike, which paralyzed Puerto Rico’s public school system for 10 days, drew unprecedented support from parents, students, and local communities sympathetic to the teachers’ struggle for a just settlement of their grievances and the improvement of public education on the island. As a result of this critical support and the determination and militancy of the teachers and their union, the government was forced to accept several of the strikers’ key demands, including an immediate raise of $250 per month for all teachers, a freeze on the government’s plans for privatization of the public education system, and a pledge from the governor to slowly but surely increase teachers’ starting salaries to $3,000 a month. In the scope of both its demands and its base of support, the strike, by its end, had become a small social movement—and its success was a victory not only for the FMPR but also for all defenders of public education.

The implications of the FMPR’s electoral victory against the SEIU, however, are much greater still. The FMPR is a militant and democratic union of the rank-and-file and its sitting president, Rafael Feliciano of the Commitment, Democracy, and Militancy (CODEMI) caucus, is an avowed socialist. In this context, SEIU’s raid was not simply an attack on the Puerto Rican teachers and their union, but also on the ideals of trade union militancy and democracy, which the FMPR—and, in particular, CODEMI—upholds.

The SEIU sought by its raid not only to replace FMPR as the teachers’ representative, but also to replace FMPR’s style of militant and democratic unionism with its own brand of top-down, management-friendly unionism. The rank-and-file’s rejection of the SEIU, therefore, also represents a rejection of bureaucratic unionism and an embrace of union militancy and democracy. The battle between SEIU and FMPR thus forms part of the much larger war of ideas now raging in the U.S. labor movement. The victory of militancy over cooperation is in fact a victory for those among us who believe securing the future for labor and working people depends on recreating a fighting movement for democratic, social justice unionism.

The FMPR’s victory also points to the possibility that a relatively small but extremely dedicated band of labor activists and reformers can make headway against a much larger and more powerful foe. FMPR spent approximately $60,000—half of it borrowed—on the election and fielded a small staff made almost entirely of volunteers. SEIU, in contrast, is estimated to have spent upwards of $10 million and fielded a staff of approximately 300 professional organizers. It is a classic case of David and Goliath.

Another important aspect of the FMPR’s victory over SEIU: The strong rejection by the Puerto Rican teachers of North American labor imperialism. In voting against SEIU, the teachers not only opted for union militancy and democracy over corporate unionism; they also asserted their independence from the North American labor movement and sent a clear message to North American unions that, while their solidarity is welcomed, attempts to manipulate or control Puerto Rican unions and unionists are not.

Solidarity: Strings Attached?

Perhaps SEIU has now learned an important lesson about meddling in the internal affairs of foreign labor movements. Either way, their actions in Puerto Rico have certainly raised concerns as to their plans for the rest of the Americas, and with good reason: The AFL-CIO’s uncritical support of right-wing U.S. foreign policy in the region in the 1970s and 1980s, which earned it the moniker “AFL-CIA,” remains a sore subject for Latin American unionists.

Solidarity protest against the SEIU at its offices in New York City. (By Micah Landau)

At the same time, the SEIU is undoubtedly engaged in good solidarity work. The union has offered badly needed support to the persecuted trade union movement in Colombia; and in July, Stern called on the Bush administration to grant visas to the wives of the Cuban Five (the five Cuban nationals accused by the U.S. of spying and whose spouses have thus far been barred from visiting their husbands in prison).

The question is at what cost: What will the SEIU ask—or demand—as the price for its support? The FMPR has drawn a line in the sand. A true and equal partnership between North American and Latin American labor organizations cannot be built on a basis of labor imperialism; the independence of Latin American unions from North American domination is the prerequisite for any meaningful joint work.

FMPR’s victory over SEIU in the recent elections is a heartening development, but it represents the beginning, rather than the end, of the struggle between the two organizations and the different models of unionism they offer to the teachers of Puerto Rico. The “no” vote victory also comes at a cost. The prospects for an FMPR return to official bargaining status have been improved by the "no" vote, but Puerto Rico’s teachers are still without a bargaining representative or agreement.

While the FMPR remains decertified, SEIU took out a paid ad in the San Juan daily, El Vocero, asserting that the employer, and not the Federation, won the elections. In the ad, the SEIU also declared its intention to continue to struggle for representation of the island’s teachers. A new and daunting challenge lies ahead: To see the FMPR re-elected within the next 12 months as the exclusive bargaining representative of Puerto Rico’s teachers and the return to the teachers of their full labor rights as unionized workers.



Micah Landau is a New York-based labor journalist and recent graduate of Yale University, where he studied

DAVID vs. GOLIATH: HOW The Puerto Rico Teacher's Union WON A BATTLE.....

FMPR, SEIU & US LABOR
DAVID vs. GOLIATH: HOW The Puerto Rico Teacher's Union WON A BATTLE FOR DIGNITY, DEMOCRACY & QUALITY EDUCATION AGAINST THE BOSS, THE GOVERNMENT & ITS US LABOR ALLY
Friday, Nov. 21, 6:30-9:30pm
NYU SILVER Bldg - ROOM 714
50 WASHINGTON PLACE
--trains to 8 St/Astor Pl; W. 4 St./Washington Square--
SPEAKERS:

* Rafael Feliciano, FMPR President
* Mark Brenner, Labor Notes
* Lisa North, ICE (Independent Community of Educators)-UFT
* Marvin Holland, TWU (Transit Workers Union) Local 100 R&F Activist

A powerful coalition consisting of the Government, Boss, Courts--and a US Union that spent millions--couldn't defeat the teachers of Puerto Rico, whose union stood firm defending quality public education, labor justice and union democracy in a stunning election victory in October of 2008.
What are the implications for other labor activists and the US Labor Movement as a whole?

Sponsored by: Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico/FMPR Support Committee-NY
fmpr.support.committee.ny@gmail.com http://fmprsupportcommittee.tumblr.com


some background:
Puerto Rico teachers defeat SEIU raid
Excerpts selected from an article by Brian Cruz, a rank-and-file member of SEIU Local 1021 in the Bay Area.--Oct 31, 2008



PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers in Puerto Rico overwhelmingly voted October 23 to reject representation by the Puerto Rico Teachers Union (SPM)--a union affiliated with the U.S.-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Those who voted "no" to the SPM weren't voting against having a union, however. In effect, they were voting in favor of their current union, the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), which was not allowed on the ballot. The 42-year-old FMPR previously had exclusive rights to represent the teachers. However, the FMPR was decertified by an anti-labor government in January 2008 for voting to go on strike. This created an opening for the SEIU to push its affiliate, the SPM.



The cards seemed stacked against the FMPR. Under Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vilá of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), the Puerto Rican government had been unwilling to agree to a collective bargaining agreement with the teachers. The FMPR sensed an impasse and decided strike for better wages, better conditions at schools for both teachers and students, and a halt to the privatization of the schools through the expansion of charter schools. However, the island's Law 45 prohibits public workers from striking, so the government decertified the FMPR even before the strike began in early February.



More than just a viciously anti-union government was at play here. In the New York Daily News, columnist Juan Gonzalez revealed that Vilá and Dennis Rivera, a top leader of SEIU, had arranged a deal in which SEIU would contribute to Vilá's campaign for re-election if Vilá would support SEIU's attempts to gain representation. The plan for the raid was for Vilá to refuse to negotiate, and then let SEIU run in a representation election. The vehicle for this plan would be the Teachers Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR), which associated with SEIU in late 2007. AMPR is an organization of administrators of the school system, such as principals and regional directors. As such, it can't represent teachers under Law 45, and in practice, never represents the interests of actual teachers in work disputes. So AMPR created SPM, whose general secretary and main spokesperson, Aida Diáz, is also president of AMPR.



While FMPR won widespread support for its strike, AMPR moved to undermine the struggle. It denounced FMPR for striking, then ran uncontested, via SPM and aided by staff and resources of SEIU, for exclusive representation rights. At first, FMPR challenged the decision that it wouldn't be allowed to participate in the election on the grounds that Law 45 had no provision prohibiting decertified unions from participating. FMPR leaders submitted 12,000 teachers' signatures petitioning for their appearance on the ballot--for which only 8,000 signatures are required. Yet the authorities still denied FMPR a place on the ballot. When they realized the unfair election would continue as planned, FMPR organized a vigorous "vote no" campaign. If successful, it would mean that the SPM wouldn't win exclusive representation rights and the FMPR would still exist as a "bona fide organization" under Puerto Rican law.



By one estimate, SEIU committed between $10 million and $20 million to the campaign, with more than 300 paid organizers on the ground, slick ads and free t-shirts. The FMPR, on the other hand, spent a mere $65,000 ($30,000 of it in loans), with mostly volunteers organizing. The difference is that these "volunteers" were the same people who helped organize the 10-day strike in February that won a wage increase and put a stop to the spread of charter schools. They were rank-and-file members with experience and a history of struggle alongside their co-workers.



FMPR's "vote no" campaign won a clear victory. The official tally is 18,123 to 14,675, in a vote where turnout was nearly 94 %. The victory is all the more impressive given that FMPR was denied the right to have observers at polling places, and that various vote shenanigans took place, with votes appearing after the last day of the election, and various "no" votes being counted as "yes." Now that FMPR has won, it continues to exist as the main organizer of teachers. However, it is not the formal collective bargaining agent. FMPR will maintain its network of shop stewards, continue to represent teachers at the school level, and to fight around issues such as wages and privatization. Eventually, FMPR could perhaps reestablish exclusive representation for the teachers.



The U.S. labor movement has a sordid history of collaborating with the State Department and CIA to undermine labor and democratic movements in other countries. SEIU's alliance with an anti-labor government to raid FMPR is only another chapter. SEIU's defeat in Puerto Rico is humiliating for SEIU President Andrew Stern, who seeks to remold the labor movement in his image. During Stern's 12 years in office, he and his team have centralized power in SEIU at the International level, in the name of being able to negotiate better contracts via "partnership" with employers and organize workers even faster. The result of substituting a militant rank and file with a small team of highly paid staffers is apparent. The types of deals being negotiated from the top have been so bad that rank-and-file workers are increasingly rejecting them.



Obviously, the black eye received by SEIU didn't help the SPM's campaign against the FMPR. Also, the challenge to the top SEIU leadership by UHW and reformers in other locals undermined SEIU's claim to be the way forward for the labor movement. The victory of the FMPR over the alliance of the Puerto Rican government, school administrators and SEIU teaches us important lessons about building unions today. First, it underlines the importance of building a fighting union from the bottom up, as opposed to more bureaucratic methods. Second, it teaches us the importance of genuine labor internationalism, based on rank-and-file action, solidarity and a commitment to union democracy.

FMPR - Puerto Rico Teacher Union Election Update

The elections that were suspended at 12 o’clock last Wednesday were reschedule for Monday, October 20, 2008 from 2:30 to 4pm, 1,058 teachers were not able to able to vote last Wednesday. The voting will take place at the same schools of the last time.

Tuesday October 21 will be the last date of voting. The final route will include Vieques, Culebras, Bayamón and Naranjito. La Junta de Relaciones de Trabajo also indicated today that the counting of the votes will be held on Thursday October 23, from 8:30 am until the count is finished. Personnel of La Junta will do the counting with the presence of SPM and the Department of Education as observers. They will also permit a limited quantity of outside observers to be in the room (limited seats).

Up to now the percent of teacher participation is around 85% the numbers of teachers who are permanent or in probation is around 36,000. This means that around 31,000 teachers will vote. To win you must have at least 50% + 1(around 16,000) of all the votes. We believe that we are winning 65% to 35%. It is not difficult to win because we have around 12,000 hard core members of FMPR (that are paying voluntary dues to our union as a Bonafide organization), there are also thousands of teachers who are PNP (rival of PPD) who are voting NO for ideological reasons and there are thousands of teachers who do not want any type of union in the school system. So if SPM wins it will be due to a massive fraud of the government in combination with key members of La Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo. They have the keys to vault where the votes are being sent to. Also the ballots are simple papers that didn’t have signatures of the functionaries that were present in the voting sites. So his is a possibility that we have to consider.

Attempt by SEIU in partnership with the PR govt. to replace the militant FMPR

Friends,

Please be advised -- the FMPR(Federation of Puerto Rico Teachers) Support Committee -- NY will be demonstrating in front of SEIU's NYC office buildings this Tuesday, October 14 at 5PM. We will denounce the actions of SEIU's leadership in Puerto Rico, including their betrayal of 42,000 striking teachers earlier this year and their subsequent raid against the teachers' bargaining representative, the Federacion de Maestros.

Now they have successfully excluded FMPR from competing in the ongoing elections for representation. Teachers have a choice to vote yes or NO to representation by SEIU -- we say vote NO! An election with only one slate is a SHAM!

Andy Stern, Dennis Rivera, and the other "chupacuotas=dues suckers" have shamelessly broken solidarity and turned viciously on a sister union. Shame on Stern! Shame on Rivera!

Please join us this Tuesday, October 14 at SEIU's NYC offices on 42nd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues at 5PM as we denounce the anti-worker and imperialist actions of SEIU's leadership and reaffirm our solidarity with the fighting Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico!


Protest the Election Sham and the Complicity of SEIU's Leadership

Oct. 14, Tuesday
5pm to 7pm
at SEIU Offices - New York
42nd Street and 8th Avenue

Denounce the Fraudulent Teacher Elections and The SEIU Leadership's Complicity & Raiding in Puerto Rico!

We demand objective observers!

Support the "NO" Vote!

WHERE: SEIU NYC Offices - 330 W42nd (8th and 9th Av).

WHEN: Tuesday, October 14 at 5PM

En solidaridad,
Angel Gonzalez
FMPR Support Committee - NYC

FMPR Update from Angel Gonzalez

Please come to our Weds. Oct. 1st FMPR Support Comm. NY - Meeting where we will discuss what we can do here at this important juncture to support the democratic teachers' struggle.

As usual our meeting will be at:
Hunter College East - 14th Fl
Center for PR Studies
6:30PM

P'alante,
Angel

FMPR Update:

Last Friday the Appellate Court of Puerto Rico ruled in a divided (2-1)
decision in favor of the Labor Board's exclusion of FMPR from participating
in the election for exclusive representation of the 42,000 teachers of PR to
be held from October 1-16, 2008. There was no legal basis for the decision
and all arguments of FMPR were completely ignored--the Court simply ruled as
the Labor Board ruled--to disqualify the union because it had been
decertified by the Board for voting to go on strike.

Thus, the ballot will contain only one union choice: the SPM, the SEIU
Affiliate invented in December, 2007 as the "union" arm of the Associacion
de Maestros--the Managerial organization of Principals, etc.--which has
served for decades as the voice of the Populares (PPD). The Popular
Democratic Party (PPD) is the party currently in power in PR (but most
likely not for long, come November, many believe!)--which controls the
judiciary and the government--and serves as the teachers' employer.

The other choice the ballot will contain will be a NO vote--for no union.
The FMPR is conducting a campaign for teachers to vote NO to SPM and will
attempt to have observers in all of the schools. While the union will
appeal to the Supreme Court, it is believed that such a ruling will not
favor FMPR as the Supremo is controlled by Governor Acevedo Avila (PPD) who
has conspired with Dennis Rivera and the SEIU to destroy the militant union.

It is important to note that this decision completely ignores the more than
12,000 teachers who have already signed cards endorsing FMPR as
representative. SEIU, after spending millions on their campaign to compete
with FMPR in their decertification attempt, apparently realized they could
not win in a fair election. The only possible way for SPM to "win" would be
if it were the only choice--thus the long delay in the Appellate's decision.
This delay also serves to cut short the time FMPR would need to develop
legal arguments for the Supreme Court and to generate a "VOTE NO" campaign.

All of these shenanigans indicate clear collaboration among SEIU, the
Asociacion, the government-boss and the courts. Class allies.

Puerto Rico Teacher Issues from Mike Antonucci

Mike Antonucci of the Educational Intelligence Agency has done the most comprehensive reporting on the situation with the Puerto Rico teachers union.

Here is a chronology of his reporting through Jan. ’07, with his permission. It is quite a yarn.

Focus on the role the AFT has played. Mike does have a point of view that is not pro-union, so take that into account. Mike’s web site is at: http://www.eiaonline.com


November 15, 1999
The NEA-AFT merger may not have worked out, but in Puerto Rico the AFT merged unions the old-fashioned way -- by winning an election to become the exclusive bargaining representative for the island’s 37,000 teachers. The victory makes the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) the second-largest AFT affiliate in the nation, behind only the United Federation of Teachers in New York City. While NEA sank at least $350,000 into its campaign, the union couldn’t match the on-the-ground organizing of AFT, which brought in allies from AFL-CIO member unions to help in the effort. NEA will lose the dues income (an estimated $2 million annually) generated by its affiliate, the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR). But a bigger blow was the final tally -- 22,156 votes for AFT and 8,024 for NEA -- indicating that a large number of the 22,000 full-time and part-time NEA members voted for their AFT rivals.


July 15, 2004
2) Intrigue in Puerto Rico. Over the years, EIA has reported on some unusual union stories, but today brought a real blast from the past concerning Puerto Rico. Back in 1998, when NEA and AFT were lobbying members to approve a merger of the two unions, their respective affiliates in Puerto Rico were going toe-to-toe in an effort to win exclusive bargaining rights for the island’s more than 22,000 teachers and school employees. AFT had the geographical edge, with its locals in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to aid the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR). But NEA spent $300,000, and rounded up Spanish-speaking UniServ directors from across the country, to help the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR). EIA covered the battle extensively.

In 1999, FMPR won the representation election by a large margin, though AMPR had been the larger organization. It looked like a total victory for AFT, as FMPR picked up a large number of former AMPR members, and AMPR itself soon disaffiliated from NEA, citing lack of support.

That’s the way the situation stood until sometime last year. EIA reported on an unusual meeting with AMPR representatives and NEA officials in Washington, DC, but nothing seemed to come of it. On the other side, FMPR was undergoing a revolution of its own.

After the union’s medical plan went bankrupt, FMPR members ousted the local’s officers in a May 2003 election. An FMPR faction called CODEMI (for Compromiso, Militancia y Democracia) won the election, and one of its campaign promises was to disaffiliate from AFT. This week, members of FMPR have been distributing to AFT delegates an open letter from FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez. In it, Hernandez accuses the AFT of “improper intervention in the internal affairs of the FMPR.”

Hernandez claims AFT is in contact with the union’s former leaders in an effort to keep FMPR affiliated. He accuses the national union of visiting members, conducting surveys, and delivering organizing lectures, all without consulting the elected FMPR officers. “These reprehensible tactics represent the establishment of a parallel structure utilizing teachers who are loyal to the AFT and who have refused to accept the decision of Puerto Rico’s teachers to renovate union leadership,” he wrote.

“The present leadership of the FMPR have obtained important objectives despite the lack of support from the AFT and the millions of dollars that are drained from our union funds by the AFT,” Hernandez wrote, adding, “Far from being of any help, the AFT is an obstacle to our development.”

Why does faraway Puerto Rico matter? Well, for one thing, FMPR is larger than a dozen of NEA’s state affiliates, and would be in the top ten in size of AFT’s state federations. That’s a lot of members and a lot of dues.


September 13, 2004
1) Palace Coup Underway in Puerto Rico Union. One might think that events in Puerto Rico would barely qualify as a sidelight in overall interests of the American Federation of Teachers, but with about 37,000 potential members, the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) could eventually rival the Chicago Teachers Union in size. The stakes are high for AFT, and all indications suggest the union is making its play.

On July 15, EIA reported exclusively on an open letter distributed to AFT delegates by FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez, accusing AFT of "improper intervention in the internal affairs of the FMPR." Feliciano Hernandez was elected in 2003 on a platform that included disaffiliation from AFT (you can read his agenda – in Spanish -- at http://www.geocities.com/codemi2003/). In particular, Feliciano Hernandez claimed AFT was building a parallel structure of FMPR officials who wanted the federation to remain in AFT.

Last Monday, Feliciano Hernandez announced publicly that FMPR had officially begun the disaffiliation process. AFT had no public comment about the announcement and, privately, the union expressed no concern about it at all. Now we know why.

Today, the FMPR governing board announced it would call on the union's representative assembly, meeting on September 29, to formally investigate Feliciano for 40 alleged violations of the organization's regulations.

After AFT presidents have been ousted in Miami, Washington, DC, and New Hampshire, it is impossible to dismiss the charges against Feliciano Hernandez out of hand. But one must also wonder whether this is exactly what the "parallel structure" was designed to do. At the very least, the disaffiliation will be stalled until Feliciano Hernandez addresses the charges.


November 22, 2004
3) Disaffiliated or Not? The Puerto Rico Mystery. When last we checked (see the September 13, 2004 EIA Communiqué), the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) was planning to disaffiliate from AFT, but the process had been stalled by loyalists who filed complaints against FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez. It is difficult to determine exactly what happened at the union's delegate assembly on September 29, because EIA only has the version distributed by the victors, but Feliciano Hernandez clearly outmaneuvered his accusers.

The delegates voted 783 to 392 to disaffiliate from AFT, and apparently confirmed the stewardship of Feliciano Hernandez over the direction of the union. Nevertheless, it is now late November and FMPR is still paying its national dues to AFT and has made no evident effort to formally end its ties with the national union. AFT, quite rationally on its part, still considers FMPR to be an affiliate.

EIA's efforts to obtain clarification from FMPR have been, so far, unsuccessful.


May 31, 2005
) AFT Embarks on Civil War in Puerto Rico. The American Federation of Teachers plans to establish an administratorship over its affiliate in Puerto Rico, but the union president says he will fight the effort with every means at his disposal.

The island has been a hotbed of union conflict for both the NEA and the AFT for many years (see the July 15, 2004 EIA Communiqué for a summary). The two unions battled for exclusive representation against the backdrop of national merger talks in 1998, the AFT affiliate (the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, or FMPR) won the representation election, the NEA affiliate left NEA and became independent, and FMPR's medical plan went bankrupt. In May 2003, Rafael Feliciano Hernandez ran for president of FMPR on a platform of reform and disaffiliation from AFT. He won, but the divorce from AFT did not occur as planned.

Last year, Feliciano claimed AFT officials contacted FMPR's former leaders in an effort to keep the union affiliated. Accusations flew back and forth, with some FMPR officials charging Feliciano with corruption and unconstitutional actions, and Feliciano claiming AFT was trying to undermine his authority.

Matters came to a head on September 29, 2004. Details of what occurred that day are in deep dispute, but both sides acknowledge that a vote on disaffiliation was held, and that the result was overwhelmingly in favor of disaffiliation.

AFT did not recognize the disaffiliation, and while FMPR stopped paying dues to AFT, it continued to make payments on a $1.9 million remnant of a loan from the 1999 representation election campaign. Relations between the two unions remained in a hazy limbo until January 2005, when hundreds of FMPR reps opposed to disaffiliation petitioned AFT to investigate the vote and the tenure of Feliciano.

In March, AFT sent national vice presidents John Cole of Texas and Maria Portalatín of New York (chosen for their fluency in Spanish) to the island to conduct interviews. The investigation was not ideal, since opponents of the disaffiliation were eager to testify, but Feliciano and his supporters no longer recognized the authority of the AFT, and so did not cooperate.

After a three-day probe, Cole and Portalatín concluded that the FMPR leadership had committed multiple violations of both the AFT and FMPR constitutions. They advised AFT to "follow the procedures for the creation of an administration committee," saying it was "the only remedy that will restore the rights" of FMPR members. The AFT Executive Council approved the recommendation and will send Cole, Portalatín and John Doherty of Chicago back to Puerto Rico to begin proceedings for the establishment of an administratorship over the union.

The AFT team reported that the disaffiliation vote was not placed on the agenda of delegate assembly 30 days prior, as required by the FMPR constitution, that there may have been ineligible delegates who voted, and that the conduct of debate was slanted in favor of those who wanted to disaffiliate. Additionally, the AFT team stated that disaffiliation required an amendment to the FMPR constitution, and that the process for constitutional amendments was not followed. Finally, the team accused Feliciano of administering the union budget without the proper oversight by FMPR's representative bodies.

In response, Feliciano issued a statement repudiating AFT's plans and announcing that FMPR did not recognize AFT's authority. Feliciano called AFT's action a "declaration of war" against FMPR and all the unions, political and social organizations that support it. Over the weekend, supporters and opponents of Feliciano held dueling press conferences to alternately praise and denounce him.

Though the dispute may seem like small potatoes in a faraway place, the FMPR has as many members as AFT's affiliate in Chicago, and there is a huge amount of money at stake. If Feliciano is corrupt and is seizing undemocratic control of an AFT affiliate, then AFT has the right and responsibility to act. But this is a different scenario than what happened in Washington, DC and Miami, where AFT let long-time union presidents bleed their locals dry before stepping in.

Feliciano and his slate announced their intentions to disaffiliate from AFT while they were candidates in 2003, and they were elected. That a disaffiliation should then take place hardly seems to fly in the face of the will of the members. Second, does AFT really have the authority to intervene? What's to stop the union from reversing any disaffiliation vote in the same manner? The election losers call you in, you hear testimony from them, you rule the vote was improper and you establish national control over the affiliate. Whether Feliciano is a crook or a saint, he'd be insane to trust AFT to impartially judge the situation. AFT has a huge financial stake in the outcome.

Whatever AFT or FMPR does in the next month, this whole mess is going to end up in a courtroom, where it belongs.

P.S. Search if you will for any mention of this anywhere on the AFT web site, or in any of its many publications, statements or releases.


June 6, 2005
2) Was AFT's Puerto Rico Coup Two Years in the Making? More details from EIA's English language exclusive on AFT's attempts to impose an administratorship on the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) over the objections of that union's president:

El Nuevo Dia interviewed the president of FMPR's local in San Juan, Lorelei Lopez Nieves. She told the newspaper that although she favored continued affiliation with AFT, and disagrees with FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez, she opposes any attempt by AFT to take control of FMPR.

Lopez Nieves said AFT was exploring the idea of an administratorship ever since Feliciano took office in August 2003. She said she was one of 15 teachers who took a leave of absence to participate in an AFT education project. Her account (roughly translated) was: "I was thinking it was an education project and I realized it was a 'decapitation' project against Rafael Feliciano and in favor of administratorship; that's why I decided to return to the classroom."

Lopez Nieves also claims the letter sent to AFT by hundreds of FMPR representatives calling for an investigation of Feliciano was solicited by AFT itself and did not call for the establishment of an administratorship.

Meanwhile, FMPR has retained the assistance of SAL, an organization of island attorneys, who called the AFT effort "an attack on a union's democratic self-determination and against the Puerto Rican workers' movement."


June 13, 2005
2) Puerto Rico President Defies AFT Panel. AFT held a public hearing in Puerto Rico last week to determine whether to place the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) under national administratorship. The event quickly turned into political theater, which you're missing if a) you don't read Spanish, and/or b) you're waiting for the AFT to say something, anything, about this potential loss of thousands of members and millions of dollars.

FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez and his supporters appeared at the hotel where the hearing was being held, only to discover it was on the sixth floor and security would not let them on the elevators. This, according to a press report, "caused a heated incident."

Because Feliciano has refused to cooperate with AFT's investigation, the national union evidently didn't expect him to show up. Feliciano ended up taking the stairs to the sixth floor, where AFT allowed him to make a statement (albeit a little winded), though he and his supporters refused to be sworn in by the committee.

While Feliciano spoke, two groups of demonstrators protested noisily outside – one with orange shirts (pro-AFT), one with yellow shirts (anti-AFT).

Feliciano told the AFT panel that FMPR had legitimately disaffiliated from AFT last year, and that the national union no longer had any jurisdiction over the FMPR's internal operations. He called recent events an attempted "golpe de estado," or coup d'etat, by AFT and its loyalists in Puerto Rico.

After completing his statement, Feliciano refused to be questioned by the panel and left.

The dispute is almost certain to end up in court. In the meantime, Feliciano and FMPR have put together an impressive list of supporters, including most of the island's labor unions.


July 18, 2005
1) In Puerto Rico, It's the American Federation of "Dues-Suckers." In his keynote speech to the AFT QuEST conference on July 7, AFT President Edward McElroy mentioned John Kerry, CAFTA, NCLB, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, merit pay, membership numbers, lobbying, and the current dissension in the AFL-CIO. He didn't mention that the day before, AFT established an administratorship over a 32,000-member union that had seceded from AFT in September 2004, or that there were protesters outside with signs reading "AFL-CIO, Out of Puerto Rico" and "Chupa Cuotas" or "Dues-Suckers."

AFT completed its Puerto Rico adventure by stripping of power the elected leadership of the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) and naming former FMPR President Felix Rodriguez Hernandez as AFT's Temporary Administrator. Current FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez (no relation) promises not to go quietly.

Incendiary accusations are being tossed back and forth in this ugly dispute, but the key legal issue will be whether AFT can apply its rules and administratorship over a union that seceded – regardless of whether AFT believes the secession vote met its standards.

According to AFT, "there is no doubt that an AFT administratorship is necessary both to correct the systematic repression of democratic rights that has occurred and to restore fiscal responsibility to the FMPR." The union accuses Feliciano of a "pattern of discrimination based on political orientation," "financial malpractice" and a "carefully orchestrated campaign of intimidation, interference and coercion."

Additionally, AFT asserts that Feliciano failed to abide by the FMPR Constitution in conducting the disaffiliation vote and in budget approval matters. LaborNotes reports that AFT's complaint about the disaffiliation vote was dismissed by Puerto Rico's labor commission.

Feliciano has no shortage of fiery rhetoric either. He has consistently argued that he and his slate were elected on a platform of disaffiliation, that the FMPR delegates made their desires known with their vote on the issue last September, and that the AFT no longer has any type of legal authority over FMPR. "Its imposition of an administratorship has as much substance as the wind," he said.

In his statement to the AFT investigative panel on June 7, Feliciano stated, "The illegal and arbitrary investigation that this panel has been charged with undertaking is only dressing for the AFT's plans to stage a coup and destroy our union's precious democracy, trampling over the FMPR's Constitution and bylaws with the goal of recovering their millionaire sweetheart deal and lost power." He referred to AFT's notion of justice and democracy as "little less than medieval." (I have posted a couple of photos from the June 7 protest on the EIA web site. Many FMPR supporters wore yellow shirts.)

Feliciano has for a long time claimed that AFT was creating a parallel structure in Puerto Rico in an effort to head off disaffiliation. Now they have one. The two competing administrations now operate out of separate offices in San Juan, and have separate web sites (http://www.fmprlucha.org and http://www.aftpr.org).

There are more than a few ironies here. In it stated purpose to protect the FMPR Constitution, the AFT has suspended it "to the extent necessary to allow the administrator to perform his/her duties." FMPR has rallied and picketed at AFT hearings and events. Some of the most avid labor activists and leftists are denouncing AFT for its "labor imperialism."

After turning a blind eye to the activities of Barbara Bullock in DC and Pat Tornillo in Miami for so many years, AFT is sensitive to accusations of union presidents running roughshod over members' rights and dues money. But the national union's actions in Puerto Rico have the distinct smell of United Fruit.


Aug. 1, 05
2) AFT's Attempted Takeover in Puerto Rico Heads to Court. In an expected move during a conflict that has been filled with surprises, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed a civil case in U.S. District Court against the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) and its president, Rafael Feliciano. AFT's complaint stems from the national union's attempt to install an administratorship over FMPR, which disaffiliated last September, and FMPR's resistance to that effort. Both sides have filed numerous motions, and the resolution of the dispute may ultimately hinge on technical and jurisdictional matters.

EIA is in possession of most of these court documents, and a preliminary injunction hearing to enforce the AFT administratorship is scheduled for Tuesday, August 9. FMPR has also filed a motion to dismiss.

Two key questions to be decided outside of the merits of the case are whether the federal court has jurisdiction, and whether AFT has standing to file suit based on the charges it made. FMPR claims the court lacks jurisdiction because AFT filed its claim as a dispute between labor organizations under provisions of the Labor-Management Relations Act. Neither FMPR (nor Feliciano) is a labor organization subject to the LMRA. Additionally, FMPR claims AFT's charges pertain to alleged injuries to FMPR members, and that AFT, not being a member of FMPR, has suffered no injury on its own behalf to support filing suit.

For its part, AFT claims that, as an AFT affiliate subject to the AFT constitution, FMPR does not have to meet LMRA's "labor organization" definition to be subject to its provisions. And the national union adds that, "The AFT has also suffered and will continue to suffer significant injury to its reputation" as long as FMPR defies the administratorship.

(Editorial aside: How much injury can AFT's reputation suffer when the only place members and the public can regularly read about this story is in the EIA Communiqué?)

If the legal questions are resolved in AFT's favor and the suit goes to trial, the chief issue will be, as FMPR baldly declares, "The AFT has no valid legal authority to impose trusteeship to a non-affiliate party." Can AFT prove with a preponderance of the evidence that FMPR's September 2004 disaffiliation was conducted not only improperly, but fraudulently? Its own investigation may not stand up to scrutiny. As FMPR cleverly cites The Federalist No. 10: "No man is allowed to be judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity."


Aug. 8, 2005
2) AFT Loses First Two Skirmishes in Puerto Rico. AFT's first efforts to enforce its administratorship over the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) were dealt a double blow last week. Federal magistrate Gustavo Gelpi ruled that FMPR is no longer subject to the National Labor Relations Act and so AFT cannot sue under the act's provisions. FMPR hailed the decision, while AFT's response was to refer to Gelpi as “the equivalent of a judge's assistant," noting the final decision belongs to U.S. District Court Judge Jay Garcia-Gregory. Both sides will submit their replies today to Gelpi's ruling, and Judge Garcia-Gregory is expected to make his own ruling on August 22.

Meanwhile, AFT Administrator Felix Rodriguez met with the Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Rafael Aragunde, in an effort to have the agency recognize the AFT administratorship as the true representative of Puerto Rico's teachers. However, Aragunde said he will follow a neutral line in the dispute and that FMPR remains empowered "until a court says the opposite."


August 22, 2005

1) AFT Loses in Puerto Rico's Courts and Ballots. The hopes of the American Federation of Teachers of regaining its affiliate in Puerto Rico were hit with two fatal blows last week.

In the first, U.S. District Court Judge Jay Garcia-Gregory ruled that the court has no jurisdiction to decide AFT's lawsuit intended to enforce its administratorship over the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR), its local that disaffiliated in September 2004. FMPR is subject to the collective bargaining law of Puerto Rico (Law 45) and not the National Labor Relations Act. Thus, the AFT suit was dismissed without its arguments being considered.

The AFT administrator, Felix Rodriguez, said AFT would evaluate its legal alternatives. He also announced plans to establish regional offices and to undertake a bus tour of the country's schools to organize opposition to FMPR and garner support for the administratorship. AFT supporters also called for a boycott of the August 18 referendum on the organization's future, called by FMPR President Rafael Feliciano to put an end to the question once and for all.

If the numbers are to be believed, both the boycott and the referendum were a disaster for AFT.

With an 84 percent turnout among the island's 32,616 FMPR members, disaffiliation defeated affiliation by a margin of more than 3 to 1. Rodriguez called the referendum "a vile and fraudulent effort to deceive."

AFT has lost in every venue in Puerto Rico, but it clearly isn't giving up. With no legal or practical way to exercise authority over FMPR, its operations, facilities or finances, AFT is left with only alternative: creating a rival union. Early signs indicate AFT is considering just such a step.

In the organizing game "Survivor: Puerto Rico," AFT has been unable to outwit and outplay its FMPR opponents. It remains to be seen if AFT can outlast them.

Aug. 05

4) Detailed Results Show AFT Was Pummeled in Puerto Rico. The Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) released the local results of the August 18 referendum on disaffiliation from AFT. Disaffiliation won a majority in 12 of the island's 13 regions and 83 of 94 districts. The only significant AFT support came in the northwest part of the island, while FMPR handily won the districts with the most members: San Juan, Ponce and Bayamon.


Sept. 16, 2005
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Thus ends AFT's formal presence in Puerto Rico. As EIA has reported (exclusively for a long, long time), AFT's efforts to regain control of the disaffiliated Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) have been defeated at every turn. The national union conceded defeat by shutting down the AFTPR web page with the above notice, and overnighting a letter to FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez on Wednesday, notifying him that AFT was revoking FMPR's affiliation!

Additionally, the AFT Executive Council terminated the administratorship over FMPR (which never took practical effect anyway), and included a pointed reference to outstanding loans and back dues payments. AFT wants the latter repaid by next Friday. Good luck.

It bears repeating that it has been almost a full year since the FMPR disaffiliation vote, and following months of investigations, protests, rallies, lawsuits, an administratorship, court decisions, a referendum, and a charter revocation, you will still search in vain for any public statement about these events from AFT national headquarters. Can't have the loss of 32,000 members undermine the message, can we?


Sept. 26, 2005
3) AFT Raises the White Flag in Puerto Rico. If you missed Friday's story in Intercepts, here are the highlights:

As EIA has reported (exclusively for a long, long time -- see here and here for example), AFT's efforts to regain control of the disaffiliated Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) have been defeated at every turn. The national union conceded defeat by shutting down the web page of its administratorship, and overnighting a letter to FMPR President Rafael Feliciano Hernandez on Wednesday, notifying him that AFT was revoking FMPR's affiliation!

Additionally, the AFT Executive Council terminated the administratorship over FMPR (which never took practical effect anyway), and included pointed reference to FMPR's "substantial debt to the AFT" for previous loans and "between 17 and 18 months back per capita" to be repaid by September 23.

FMPR previously acknowledged its loan debt to AFT, but is unlikely to pay back dues when it has always maintained it disaffiliated in September 2004. Nevertheless, AFT is now out 32,000 members. Any odds on when we'll see the press release on that news?


Oct. 24 2005
AFT's LM-2 also sheds some light on a story that occupied EIA's attention for much of the year – the union's attempted "coup d'etat" against the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR). You can read "Intrigue in Puerto Rico" in the July 15, 2004 EIA Communiqué, plus do a search of the EIA Archives for "FMPR" to read the other 12 installments of EIA's Puerto Rico coverage.

Though AFT still has yet to acknowledge any events in Puerto Rico to its members, it appears EIA's efforts were justified by the resources AFT deployed on the island. Last year, AFT spent $2,838,195 on what it called the "AFT Puerto Rico Project," with an additional $71,589 going to a local attorney for legal services, $108,369 to a Rafael Benitez of San Juan, presumably for organizing work, and $8,835 to Prensa Interactiva for publication services.

This $3 million expenditure dwarfs AFT's organizing outlay anywhere in the United States for 2004-05. The end result, however, was a defeat at the ballot box and in the courthouse.

Oct. 2. 2006
The LM-2 also reveals AFT spent nearly $1.9 million on its Puerto Rico project (see Item #2 below), an attempt to defeat an effort by its Puerto Rico affiliate to leave AFT. An additional $211,000 was disbursed to individuals in Puerto Rico engaged in organizing activities on AFT's behalf.

2) Teacher Union Wars in Puerto Rico Not Done Yet. When AFT cut its losses and surrendered in Puerto Rico, there was good reason to believe that the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) would return to obscurity, as far as the U.S. national labor movement was concerned. But apparently that isn't the case.

Without AFT backing, local opponents of FMPR President Rafael Feliciano and his caucus have looked elsewhere for support, and appear to have found it in two places, if the scuttlebutt is to be believed: the formerly NEA-affiliated Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (ASOMA) and the United Auto Workers.

ASOMA left NEA and collapsed as a viable organization soon after FMPR won exclusive representation rights in a 1999 election. Now it's back, allegedly bolstered by FMPR dissidents and seed money from the United Auto Workers, which has a significant presence on the island.

ASOMA is seeking a new representation election for some 40,000 teachers in Puerto Rico, which we can expect FMPR to fight with all the verve it displayed in the AFT disaffiliation battle.


May 14, 2007

1) Puerto Rico Representation Election Likely to Go Forward. If my limited Spanish reading skills are up to snuff, it appears the labor commission in Puerto Rico has recognized the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR) as a legitimate teachers' union, paving the way for an election to represent the island's more than 42,000 teachers.

The incumbent Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) had challenged the status of AMPR, claiming the rival union was a company union - a management tool to rid it of the antagonistic FMPR. The labor commission disagreed with this assessment, and although it has the authority to call an election with 14 days' notice, it probably will not schedule a vote until August.

FMPR used to be affiliated with AFT, and AMPR with NEA, but currently both are independent (see Item #2 here). Both national unions are gun-shy about getting involved again in Puerto Rico, but an AMPR victory could eventually lead to renewed ties between Puerto Rico's teachers and one or both of the mainland teachers' unions.

January 22, 2007
2) Representation Election Likely in Puerto Rico. Barring an unusual government action, it appears we will witness a singular event in K-12 education labor history: a representation election for 42,000 employees in which neither union is (currently) affiliated with NEA or AFT.

The Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR) is the challenging organization. Once affiliated with NEA, AMPR dissolved its ties with the national union after losing the island’s initial representation election in 1999.

The Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR) disaffiliated from AFT in 2004, then fought off an AFT attempt to establish a national administratorship over it (keyword search “Puerto Rico” in the EIA Archives for the long and bloody history).

The island’s labor relations board has yet to call an election, but may do so with only 14 days’ notice. Both sides are operating under the assumption that an election will be held during the first week of February.

The campaign will go ugly early. If FMPR retains exclusive representation, it will probably put an end to challenges to its primacy for the foreseeable future. If AMPR wins, it is equally likely that it will be wooed for affiliation by NEA and/or AFT – perhaps both together – and other stateside public employee unions that could certainly use the boost 42,000 new members would bring.

Updates to the story from other sources are being posted on this blog. USe search words "Puerto Rico" and/or FMPR to find them.

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=fmpr&domains=eiaonline.com&sitesearch=eiaonline.c