Union workers blockade Pierluisi’s Old San Juan office
By The Associated Press
The vice president of the Puerto Rican Workers Syndicate chained himself to the entrance of the San Juan office of Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi on Friday, demanding that he show up and receive a press release in which he urges him to reject the dismissal of thousands of public workers as ordered by Gov. Fortuño.
Starting early in the morning, a group of workers occupied the vestibule of the office, in the State Department, calling for the congressional representative, a national Democrat, to come out publicly against the “the Republican and anti-labor policies of Gov. Fortuño.”
“Pierluisi goes around in Washington like a member of the U.S. Democratic Party, while in Puerto Rico he supports and works in favor of the most Republican and anti-worker policies ever implemented on the island,” said the union official, Israel Marrero.
The union said that during the ceremony this week to mark Veterans Day, Pierluisi reiterated his full support for all of Fortuño’s policies.
“We urge Pierluisi to define here and in Washington [D.C.] if he is with the policies of [former President] George [W.] Bush as incarnated in Fortuño or if he is for the change that promised President Obama, Marrero, who said he campaigned for the current commander in chief, said in a press release.
In a written statement, Pierluisi expressed his “solidarity” with island workers and said he has he also supported all of the Obama initiatives aimed at the economic recovery of the United States and Puerto Rico.
“In Puerto Rico, the crisis has been much more serious than … [in] any state of the union,” Pierluisi said. “Our government is bankrupt. The governor has had to take drastic measures to put the house in order and be able to put Puerto Rico on the road to progress. I am sure that any responsible governor, from any party, would have had to make basically the same decisions.”
The protesters planned to give a document to Pierluisi in which he could reject Article 3 of fiscal emergency law 7, which orders the mass dismissal of government employees, and promise to “establish a dialogue with the labor movement that produces viable and socially sensible alternatives to the fiscal difficulties Puerto Rico is facing.”
Some 20,000 workers have been given pink slips in an effort to reduce a commonwealth budget deficit of an estimated $3.2 billion, while the unemployment rate stands at some 16.4 percent.
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