First Published: Challenge, September 21, 1972.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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SAN JUAN, PUERTO–THE CLASS STRUGGLE here is getting hotter every day. The campaign by the Puerto Rican Socialist League (PRSL) against the colonial elections has put thousands of posters and signs up all over metropolitan San Juan and in Ponce (the two main cities here) denouncing the bosses’ elections. Luis Ferre (Nixon’s buddy), Hernandez Colon (McGovern’s pal) and all the other candidates promise everything now. But once the elections are over they forget those promises. No matter who wins, the people lose.
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THE U.N. RESOLUTION DECLARED WHAT everybody knows, that Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony. But revolutionary communists in the PRSL know well that the U.N. is a center of “discussion” between imperialists (whether the U.S. or the U.S.S.R.) and that it only serves these bosses’ interests. Only our own efforts through people’s war can bring freedom to the Puerto Rican working class–workers’ power socialism.
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“WHEN THE ENEMY ATTACKS, IT IS BECAUSE we are doing something good.” The Accusation by the “leader” of the Independent Union of Telephone Employees, Carlos Rivas, that two other leaders who opposed him in the past union elections are PRSL members is a lie. Also, his anti-communist attacks against the PRSL, accusing us of “viciousness” in the past phone strike here is an attempt to insult the militant phone workers.
At a Sept. 3 union meeting workers booed an attack on the PRSL for 30 minutes, forcing the anti-communist union “leaders” to adjourn the meeting.
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THE TWO STRIKES THAT SO STRONGLY SHOOK up the bosses, here are over. The taxi walkout that left the metropolitan area without taxis for two weeks ended. The bosses then, naturally, raised the fare. The hospital, strike is also over. After weeks of militancy, the workers won a $60-a-month increase the first year, retroactive to July 1, and a $30 gain the second year.