Antiwar activist tours Salvadoran unions

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Salvadoran army troops have been used to break strikes. Sygma 6 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1987 (Central America Solidarity Committee) in Boston. She was interviewed last month by Jim Henle.

Socialist Action: You have just returned from El Salvador. Who sponsored your tour and what was its purpose?

Ann Salmeron: Our group was sponsored in El Salvador by the National Union of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS). We were organized in this country with no formal sponsorship. All together on the tour, there were five labor representatives and five representatives from solidarity groups.

We represented ourselves as a delegation that was primarily interested in learning about the union movement in El Salvador. We were there from July 19 until Aug. 1.

S.A.: I attended a conference in El Salvador last year, and one of the things that came out of the labor workshop was a resolution to set up sister-union type relations between the United States and El Salvador. That seems like a logical first step-to set up delegations from unions to go over and observe and have discussions with the UNTS.

Salmeron: Many of the people that we dealt with had a high level of militancy and class consciousness. Yet it struck me that these same people had a low level of awareness of the situation in the United States.

They thought that it was because of U.S. workers that they had AIFLD [an international department of the AFL-CIO which is financed by the U.S. State Department] in El Salvador. Somehow, they thought, U.S. workers were benefiting from that.

S.A.: Which unions were you able to talk to and what is the general state of the union movement in El Salvador today?

Salmeron: Well, we saw dozens of unions. Most of them were urban unions. We visited them at their union offices, and we also tried to visit as many workplaces as possible. But unfortunately, many of the workplaces are militarized, so we couldn't go in.

There are strikes everywhere. We went to the SSI worksite-the Social Security Institute-in the cities of San Salvador, San Miguel, and Santa Ana. That strike is the most prominent one now. Two marches supporting the SSI workers were fired upon by the government.

S.A.: The papers here report that there was a lot of rock throwing and strikers carrying clubs with nails in them, and that much of this is encouraged by the FMLN.

Salmeron: We participated in two marches—an annual July 30 commemoration of a student massacre in 1975 and then a UNTS march-and we saw no evidence of that. When we were there, the papers reported that the government fired on the last march because the protesters (the paper referred to them as the "UNTS/FMLN" protesters) were carrying Uzis and M-16s, which is the most utterly absurd thing in the world.

Union members may talk to you about their view of one tendency versus another, but publicly the union movement has no relations with the FMLN. They think it's important that they not have any formal relationship right now because people are still terrorized.

If you're going into a factory for union organizing and everybody thinks, "That's the FMLN," then people aren't going to come out into the street and support you.

Also, once they are officially categorized as the urban wing of the FMLN, then they'll be a legitimate military target and will give the government an excuse to escalate the repression without there being much of a response in the United States.

And the people within the UNTS are really much broader than FMLN supporters. The union movement is so broad in El Salvador because basically the Duarte government is completely bankrupt. They spend every penny on the war.

The living standard has deteriorated dramatically in the last few years. Unemployment is as high as 50 percent. Public discontent over economic conditions is amazing. Contrary to what the media reports, the UNTS is growing.

S.A.: Are women's issues expressed in the labor movement?

Salmeron: I think in the labor union movement there's some real feminist militancy developing. We talked to the Women's Committee of the Social Security Institute strikers and to the Women's Committee of FENASTRAS. These women were right up there on a lot of women's issues ranging from abortion to the role women have been playing in the political process.

Even the most progressive men expect the women to do all the housework. They told us about women who were beaten by their husbands for becoming too involved in union or political struggles. This seems to be very common, and the women are very much aware of the problem.

They see the need to organize around women's issues as well as general political issues. Some of the most militant unions in El Salvador are composed mostly of women.

S.A.: One of the provisions of the new peace plan is that it's supposed to allow democratic rights in the country. Clearly, people don't take that very seriously because all the opposition papers are closed down. There's constant terror.

Salmeron: No, it's just a way of sledgehammering Nicaragua. The Salvadorans are pretty savvy to that. In El Salvador, Duarte is offering an amnesty program in which he says he will talk to anybody who lays down their arms and comes back into San Salvador. It's obviously ridiculous given the level of repression.

There have been a whole series of captures, mutilations, rapes, and deaths. Three members of the coffee workers union have been abducted and remain disappeared since May. Bodies are appearing everywhere.

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