https://iclfi.org/pubs/wv/1190/upr
The following article is the translation of a Spanish-language leaflet issued on April 30 after students at the University of Puerto Rico campuses in Río Piedras and Mayagüez declared an indefinite strike against tuition hikes and budget cuts. After the leaflet was issued, students from nine other UPR campuses joined the strike, but only for limited durations. Since then, the government has forced the Mayagüez campus to open. It is urgent that strike leaders reach out to the working class to join the struggle and defend the picket lines. Workers have the social weight to push back against the imperialists and their bloodsucking Junta (financial oversight board). If the UPR strike is crushed, more attacks on the Puerto Rican masses are sure to come.
Students of UPR:
Your universities and education are under attack. Your schools have been left to rot. Your tuition is increasing while programs are being cut. At the same time your futures are unstable as jobs are dwindling and overall life in Puerto Rico has been made miserable. You know this better than anyone, and you know those responsible are not only the Puerto Rican government but also U.S. imperialism. That is why you have come together to shut down UPR and start a strike.
What you are doing is courageous, there is no doubt about it. But the strike is isolated and in danger of being crushed. This cannot happen. The question is: how do you stop this, build the strike and make it win something for you and the rest of Puerto Rico?
1. Reinforce the Pickets. Send Delegations to the Working Class and Get Them Involved.
There is a militant, highly political and organized core of students making sure the campus is shut down tight. But right now, the pickets at the gates are small and the strike is isolated. To beef up the pickets and get the strike out of isolation, these core students need to form a delegation, talk to the working class and get them to join the strike. Workers from HEEND and APPU need to be pulled in to do this, since they are directly affected by the budget cuts, but there needs to be an appeal made to UTIER, CGT, FMPR and other unions too. The call for the working class to join is not for moral support but to send contingents to defend the gates. The working class has an interest in defending UPR because it is their kids who are affected by the attacks on education. Workers fighting in defense of education would also strengthen their own position. That’s because they would be using their social power to defend students and the rest of Puerto Rican society. It’s necessary to get the unemployed masses and immigrants involved in the strike because they are also victims of imperialism. A strike based on this working-class strategy would put students, teachers and workers in a better place to win their demands—and could be a spark for greater battles in Borikén.
2. Link the Struggle for Education to the Anti-Imperialist Struggle.
The reason why tuition is going up, courses are being cut and education is being attacked is because the government is trying to pay off the debt that has been imposed by the colonial masters. The fight for quality education needs to be linked to the fight against U.S. imperialism, taking back from the masters all the resources that have been ripped away from the Boricua masses. This is why you need to get the working class involved: they have the social weight necessary to push the anti-imperialist struggle forward. The fight against imperialism means throwing out La Junta and expropriating the banks to rebuild UPR, pay teachers more, give students stipends and fix basic infrastructure on the island. It needs to be made clear that the struggle for free and quality education is an anti-imperialist struggle.
One More Point:
It is true Zayira needs to go, and it would be good if she is out, but who should she be replaced with? The resignation of one university president and replacement with a “progressive” one will not solve the situation at UPR. Any president, progressive or conservative, will be working directly for the Puerto Rican government that is tied to U.S. imperialism by a thousand threads. UPR doesn’t need another president to run the institution into the ground. It needs to be run by workers, students and professors if UPR hopes to have a future!
