A day before an island-wide work stoppage called by unions in solidarity with University of Puerto Rico striking students, university professors and workers reiterated Monday their backing of the strike and demanded the UPR administration restart talks “in good faith” with the students.
To help pressure the administration to start such negotiations, UPR maintenance employees in the Workers Syndicate started a week-long stoppage that closed down the Medical Sciences Campus, the sole campus whose students have not approved an indefinite strike. They also blocked the entrance to the UPR Central Administration offices at the Botanical Gardens in Río Piedras.
This means all 11 UPR campuses are currently shut down, 27 days after the start of a 48-hour stoppage in the Río Piedras campus that turned into a full-blown strike, and which spread to other campuses.
Later in the morning, students representing the National Negotiating Committee — created after students in Río Piedras and other campuses ratified strike votes and agreed last week to coordinate negotiating efforts — showed up at the south gate of the Botanical Garden grounds to deliver a letter to UPR Board of Trustees Chairwoman Ygrí Rivera de Martínez demanding a meeting with Rivera and other board members to restart talks on Wednesday at 10 a.m. About 20 police stood guard outside the gate and the students were not allowed in. They handed over the letter to UPR security director Abraham Rodríguez.
“This committee is made up of students from all campuses and is the entity authorized to take part in negotiations with the university administration,” reads the letter, which says that the administration may confirm the meeting with spokesman Velerie Rodríguez from Bayamón, Carlos Zayas from Humacao and Dahil R. Colón from Arecibo.
Zayas told the Daily Sun late Monday afternoon that they had yet not received a response. He said the committee would negotiate the common grievances to all campuses involving controversial Certification 98, while “respecting” local negotiations between students and campus chancellors.
While this occurred, Río Piedras General Student Council President Gabriel Laborde was joined by the leaders of the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors, the Non-Teaching Employees Brotherhood or HEEND, the Workers Syndicate and Academic Senate members in demanding that Río Piedras campus Interim Chancellor Ana Guadalupe and the Board of Trustees “immediately” order the police to leave the campus perimeter “to create an atmosphere conducive to fruitful negotiations.”
During a press conference at Plaza Universitaria, across the street from the main Río Piedras campus gate, they denounced the “illegal” closing of the university by the administration as a measure of “repression” to restrict students’ rights to association and free speech. They called on the administration to negotiate with the National Negotiating Committee.
“We are not going to be intimidated by the administration’s seizure of our salaries with the lockout,” said HEEND spokeswoman Christie Capetta Suro.
Laborde praised the participation Monday of dozens of student athletes from Río Piedras and other campuses such as Humacao, Ponce, Mayagüez and Carolina in the picket line in front of the Río Piedras campus’ main gate, saying this shows how widespread is student dissatisfaction with Certification 98, which would force athletes and other talented students to choose between tuition waivers and Pell grants.
Luis Santos, an education major who plays for the Río Piedras softball and baseball teams, said the university could lose its best athletes, particularly those who come from low-income families, if they are forced to make such a choice. He said UPR athletes, who this year are the Inter-university Athletic League global champions, make up a part of the Puerto Rico team participating in this summer’s Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayagüez.
“The National Athletic Association has the UPR in its second division, but if we lose talent, we could fall to the third division and lose money from such entities as the NCAA,” he said in his red and white uniform as other athletes picketing in their uniforms chanted: “Sport is my passion, I deserve the exemption.”
He said Río Piedras have not been paid a $400 allowance for food this year that is usually paid in installments every 15 days. Moreover, they must train in rock-filled and brush-strewn campus baseball fields. He said the university prefers to pay athletes to play in other fields than put their own up to date to hold home games.
Angie Troche, an accounting student and tennis player, said the Ponce Catholic University offered to pay her $600 a month as well as tuition and room-and-board to have her as an athlete, but she opted for the UPR’s prestige.
“With Certification 98, you will have to be a rich athlete to study here,” she said. “The tuition exemption is an incentive to participate in UPR teams.”
In the afternoon, former Puerto Rico Physicians and Surgeons Association President Eduardo Ibarra arrived at the gate to announce the intentions of the non-profit Health Rights Foundation to set up a clinic camp with voluntary doctors within campus grounds to provide emergency care for striking students, police or other protesters there. He was turned back by police, who took his petition to the UPR president asking for an authorization.
“This is a call to reason. There are more than 200 students in there,” said the Mexican-born doctor, who added that he wants to aid his alma mater in a time of crisis. “Access to health, as well as education, is a human right that must be guaranteed,” he said.
In fact, San Juan Superior Court Judge José Negrón Fernández decided to leave without effect his ruling Friday denying parents of striking students an injunction ordering the administration to allow the delivery of food, water and other provisions to students inside the campus, saying police were ordered to let them pass. He ordered parties to a hearing today to have them agree on the “protocol” of how such deliveries should be made.