Puerto Rican national convention sets goals
1987 1987-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1987 5 HARTFORD, Conn.—This city was host to the fourth National Puerto Rican Convention over the weekend of May 2931.
The choice of site was significant for two reasons:
1) the ongoing legal proceedings against the Hartford 16the pro-independence, prosocialism fighters kidnapped from the island colony on Aug. 30, 1985, on trumped-up charges of conspiring to rob an armored-car depot;
2) and the prominence of Puerto Rican workers in several significant labor struggles in the region, including the 17month Colt strike and a number of successful factory organizing drives.
A Labor Task Force panel attracted some 100 workers, organizers, and officials from a dozen or more unions. Several members of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union were present.
Issues discussed on the panel included the rapidly declining standard of living of Puerto Ricans both in the United States and on the island, and the absence of representation in positions of responsibility in the unions. It was pointed out that approximately one-third of Puerto Ricans in the labor force are unionized, double the proportion of whites.
The panel strongly supported holding a North East Regional Puerto Rican/Latino trade-union congress in the spring of 1988. This was subsequently ratified by the convention as a whole.
The convention also supported a demonstration on Aug. 30 in support of the Hartford 16 and all Puerto Rican political prisoners, and took a stand against U.S. intervention in Central America and against the "English-Only" right-wing movement.