Political Report # 1295 In Puerto Rico, Unions Lead in Hurricane Relief Efforts

By Stephanie Basile Labor Notes

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, as Puerto Rico faces government neglect, unions' relief efforts have been critical. Teachers and students across the island have cleared debris off the roads and delivered medical supplies. On the outskirts of San Juan, communications and transport workers cooked and distributed hot meals. Union volunteers on Isla Verde drove door to door with water and supplies. And these are just a handful of stories among hundreds. On September 26, less than a week after the storm barreled through the island, Puerto Rico's storied teachers union, the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR), sprang into action. FMPR teamed up with the island's labor federation (CGT) to set up "brigades." Teams of teachers, retirees, and students were dispatched to remove fallen trees, clear roads, and put up tents in roofless houses. Such large-scale efforts require cross-union coordination. The teachers have worked hand in hand with other Puerto Rican unions through the CGT, and with mainland unions such as the New York State Nurses. Members of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 501 -- the union of ground service and baggage handling workers at American Airlines in New York and San Juan -- and Communications Workers (CWA) Local 3140, which represents American Airlines passenger service workers in Puerto Rico and Florida, teamed up to cook and distribute 400 meals of rice, beans, and chicken in the outskirts of San Juan.

Political Report # 1107 How Hedge Funds Are Pillaging Puerto Rico By David Dayen, The American Prospect

Clementina Murcia González, from Honduras, holds up the pictures of her two missing sons, Jorge Orlando Funes Murcia and Mauro Orlando Funes. (photo: Federico Barahona) By David Dayen, The American Prospect

Vulture investors have descended on the commonwealth, taking advantage of a debt crisis that has impoverished citizens and created massive unemployment. his is a distress call from a ship of 3.5 million American citizens that have been lost at sea," Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro García Padilla said on December 1, begging the Senate Judiciary Committee to help protect his homeland from an unspooling disaster. After issuing bonds for over a decade on everything not nailed down, Puerto Rico now carries $73 billion in debt, a sum that García Padilla had termed "not payable" in June. Successive governments have enacted punishing austerity measures to service the debt, despite a stubbornly depressed economy and poverty rates near 50 percent. Now, after defaulting on smaller loans, it's likely that much of the $957 million due January 1 will go unpaid, bringing more chaos and suffering at the hands of Puerto Rico's creditors. In many ways, the Puerto Rico situation is sui generis, resulting from a patchwork of laws and obligations on an entity that is not really a country and not really a U.S. state. But looked at another way, Puerto Rico is just the latest battlefield for a phalanx of hedge funds called "vultures," which pick at the withered sinews of troubled governments. In Greece, Argentina, Detroit, and now Puerto Rico, vultures have bought distressed debt on the cheap, and then used coercion, threats, and legal action to secure a massive windfall, compounding the effects on millions of citizens.