AMY GOODMAN: We?re staying in Puerto Rico for a moment. The largest union in Puerto Rico, the teachers? union, is involved in a bitter struggle, where the SEIU sought to raid the union and get their members to arrange a deal with the governor to have their members join the SEIU. This is the president of the Puerto Rico teachers? union, Rafael Feliciano Hernandez, speaking at a press conference last week here in New York. RAFAEL FELICIANO HERNANDEZ: We are asking to the SEIU opposition group to stop the Stern anti-democratic politics and to stop the attack of the SEIU union against the teachers? union in Puerto Rico. We are a rank-and-file union. We are a union that fights for our people. Not only do we fight for our teachers, we fight to develop a good educational system for all our people. And that is the history of Federacion de Maestros. And I think that the convention is a good moment for the Federacion to develop any struggle against the SEIU direction, the Stern direction and the tactics that they are developing, but also the convention is a good moment to share with the SEIU delegates, the opposition sector of the SEIU delegates that thinks that the Stern politics is bad for the union, and we ask for solidarity, and we ask to stop the aggression of SEIU against our teachers and to our country, because the Federacion is a very important institution in Puerto Rico that is fighting with the communities in many areas. And I think that the alliance between the government, Dennis Rivera and SEIU is an imperialist attack against our country. AMY GOODMAN: That?s Puerto Rican teachers? union president, Rafael Hernandez. Juan? JUAN GONZALEZ: Rafael Feliciano Hernandez, yeah. I think that the key thing here is that the teachers? union is the largest and most militant union in Puerto Rico and has always been, and the efforts of SEIU earlier this year when the teachers were in the middle of a major battle and a strike with the government to step in, in essence, and to try to take over or raid the leadership of the union, has created enormous reverberations throughout the labor movement in the United States, as well as in Latin America. I think, in fact, one of the most interesting things was that Stern and Dennis Rivera announced before the convention started that they are going to begin a new effort from Puerto Rico throughout Latin America to build ties between the SEIU to build global unions. So, in essence, what SEIU is trying to do by gaining control of the teachers? union and, in effect, the Puerto Rican labor movement is to then branch out into the rest of Latin America. Now, they insist that they?re not going to do it in a way that will hurt the autonomy or the democracy of those unions, but the record has so far?has not been too good in that way. And in fact, on Saturday, just as I was on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton covering that campaign, there was a major confrontation at the SEIU convention center, where the teachers? union demonstrated, and they were then confronted. The SEIU called in the police. The Puerto Rico?s infamous Fuerza de Choque, the shock police that came in and confronted the teachers, beat quite a few of the teachers. And I think one policeman was injured in the confrontation that lasted a considerable amount of time. Several teachers were detained. I think one was eventually arrested to be charged with the assault on the police officer. But the fact that SEIU would have such a demonstration at its national convention shows that the contradictions are growing there. And also, Barack Obama was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the convention but then decided at the last moment not to attend. AMY GOODMAN: Do you know why? JUAN GONZALEZ: No, it?s not clear. His campaign just said he wasn?t going to Puerto Rico, so?but he was listed as the keynote speaker at the SEIU convention. I have a feeling it had something to do with the teachers? demonstration, but I don?t know that for sure. AMY GOODMAN: And for our radio listeners, we are showing on the television screen the video of the confrontation, and you can go to our website at democracynow.org to see what happened with the Puerto Rican teachers? union and the police who were confronting them. JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: It was shot by Frank Lopez, former Democracy Now! producer. And so, where does Puerto Rico go from here? How does it Rico fit into the presidential election, Juan? JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, now, it?s basically gone from the presidential election, except that Barack Obama did make several promises in terms of attempting to equalize the Medicare and Medicaid benefits to the island, which is a major problem, that the Congress continues to cap all federal entitlement programs to Puerto Rico at a far lower level than the rest of the fifty states. And Puerto Ricans, being US citizens, feel that this is a form of discrimination. He has promised to move on that, and he has promised that he will try to resolve the status issue in Puerto Rico. So I think that if he is elected, there is an opportunity that some of these issues on the island will be addressed, whereas John McCain has not addressed them at all. Creative Commons License