The FENASTRAS platform

Scan page 20

Ignacio De La Fuente, International Molders Union, addresses FENASTRAS' 17th congress. 20 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1985 common to most in El Salvador. Here, sprawling haciendas are obscured by 12foot-high walls of concrete and stone, often guarded by heavily armed private security guards.

At first glance, infrequent visitors to El Salvador may consider the accusations of government human and civil rights viola -tions to be exaggerated. The regime in El Salvador has attempted to revamp its image through a U.S.-sponsored public relations campaign.

A recently leaked confidential memo of a meeting of the Chiefs of Mission of the U.S. Armed Forces in Central America held in Panama on Sept. 8-10, 1985, states: "We have finally gotten people to believe that El Salvador is a reforming society and that the guerrillas do not represent the Salvadoran people. We need to continue to encourage this belief."

Certain steps have been taken, therefore, to create the impression that the Duarte regime has largely eliminated the abuses openly practiced during the 1980-83 reign of the Death Squads.

For example, though large numbers of troops are stationed around government buildings and even occupy others, the mili -ary is remarkably absent from the city streets and market places.

And, it is true, public events like the four-day FENASTRAS convention, which was attended by 400 delegates and held in a mid-city hotel, would have been unthink -able a few years ago. There is also a grow ing number of union demonstrations, with 85 strikes and job actions this year.

Faced with growing inflation and unemployment; with 20 percent of the population receiving only 2 percent of the country's income; and with an average wage of $4.50 a day, the working class in El FENASTRAS' platform of struggle, adopted by the federation's 17th national con vention, includes the follow ing demands:

• A sliding scale of wages; • Trade-union freedom, dia -logue, and negotiations to attain peace; • The right to strike and the demilitarization of all work places; • The abrogation of all antilabor legislation and decrees;

RESENT FA T-1L • The respect of all democratic freedoms, such as the right to assembly, organization, and expression; The release of all political and trade-union leaders; • The return of the exiled Salvadorans; • The punishment of all those found guilty of crimes against the people;

• An end to U.S. intervention in El Salvador and the respect of national sovereignty. trade-union rights in El Salvador was the capture of Humberto Centeno and his two sons at 6 a.m. on the morning of our arrival. Humberto Centeno is the national and international secretary of the tele -communications union, ASTTEL, an affi -liate of FENASTRAS. His sons, Jaime and Jose, are 15 and 20 years old respectively.

The unionists in El Salvador often use the word "captured" to describe these incidents because, as in the Centeno case, they involve illegal kidnappings by unidentified armed men.

Centeno was almost immediately released but his sons were charged with supplying food and supplies for the rebels of the (continued on page 7, in “Debate on Central America jolts AFL-CIO convention”)

Socialist Actlon/Carl Finamore