U.S. unionists witness Salvadoran labor upsurge

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Hector Recinos, FENASTRAS head, placing wreath at tomb of Arch The following is a report on the FENASTRAS convention, which was held in San Salvador on Nov. 5-9. FENASTRAS is one of three major union federations in El Salvador. It has 23 affiliated unions and a membership estimated at 100,000 workers.

Finamore, a member of the San Francisco Bay Area trade-union delegation, represented Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union Local 1-326 as an observer at the FENASTRAS convention.

Other Bay Area unionists included Ann Coughlin, president OPEU 29; Al Lannon, president, ILWU local 6; Ignacio De La Fuente, business manager, Molders 164; Ellen Starbird, staff organizer, Santa Clara Central Labor Council; Carl Anderson, SEIU local 14 and S.F. CISPES; Margy Wilkinson, AFSCME district council 10; and Bob Johnson, California Faculty Association.

The North American unionists escorted Hector Bernabe Recinos from Mexico City to the San Salvador convention site. Recinos is the exiled general secretary of FENASTRAS who had been imprisoned from 1980 to 1984 for his role in the electrical workers' strike of 1980, which shut off power to the city. Recinos' wife and daughter have been missing since 1980.

SAN SALVADOR-This capital city has a population of 2 million in a country of slightly over 5 million people.

The city streets are in serious disrepair, lined by old, single-story stucco buildings cracking from age, and teeming with street vendors, who are among the 40 percent unemployed barely living off the sales from their small stands.

In the finer section of town, the wealthy vainly attempt to shield themselves from the desperation, poverty, and squalor bishop Oscar Romero.

Salvador is fighting back as a matter of survival.

The next stage in the struggle will be the contest between the working class, which is recovering from the bloody repression to rebuild its organizations and leadership, and the ruling class, which is torn by the dilemma of how to halt this development without resorting to the destabilizing reign of terror that eroded its domestic and foreign support.

Attending the FENASTRAS convention turned out to be an excellent way to determine the real extent of repression faced by unionists in El Salvador.

Last year, 200 delegates attended FENASTRAS' first public convention in several years. At that time, five inter -national guests attended, including only one from the United States.

Since that convention, three leaders of FENASTRAS have been assassinated, with 38 other documented cases of unionists being captured, disappeared, or killed. FENASTRAS therefore invited a large number of international guests this year, hoping a security screen would be provided by the foreign observers.

Over 50 international guests, including 35 from the United States, attended this convention. It proceeded without disruption and even included major singing, dancing, and "teatro" performances.

It would be a big error, however, to mistake the new openings, which have been won by the unions in strikes and through international public-opinion cam -paigns, as a sign of a reversal of the gov -ernment repression.

None of our FENASTRAS guides, for example, would take us outside the San Salvador city limits. None would accom -pany us to escort Recinos back to the heavily guarded airport for his flight to Mexico City, where he had to opt for another period of exile.

We were also told that the major leaders of FENASTRAS move from their living quarters frequently and go underground for several weeks after every major union public action.

We also spoke with the financial secre -tary of the water works union, which has been on strike since May. This unionist was just released from eight days in prison. He had been forced to stand in a cell with six inches of water and to go four days without food. He was accused of obtaining supplies for the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) because he was gathering food and clothes from the church and unions for the strikers.

In a Sunday visit to a large textile union hall, the newly elected executive committee described the company-union mentality of the previous leadership. Yet, despite that conservative stance of the union, its offices had been bombed twice in the last two years.

And as we were leaving El Salvador, our hosts informed us that two members of a national human rights commission had been captured and disappeared just prior to our arrival.

Political strike

But probably the most dramatic episode disproving the myth of democracy and