By: Ramón
During the past several years, the working class in the territory has suffered an impoverishment of its means of subsistence never before seen in modern history. It is urgent for the workers to understand what is happening as these moves form part of a broader capitalist plan to restore conditions of profitability in the extraction of wealth. The laws approved under the “new” territorial government are nothing more that the continuation of policies of past administrations over more than a decade and deepened in recent years with the taking of control by finance capital through the Krueger Plan and the Wall Street Board.
The Public Public Partnerships (PPP) are nothing more than the privatization of infrastructure and public services by means of the turnover of the right to future revenues generated by a public utility or service, in addition to tax credits, to a private company that does business with the government. The pretext that they improve costs and services offered by the government is an old and hollow excuse. Past administrations started with this “novel” strategy and to reveal the truth behind it is quite easy. The privatization of highways through a PPP has resulted in the stepped up use of tolls while the conditions of roads outside of these principal highways remains similar to a war zone. This is inevitable as private interests need to make profits and, as such, will only consider projects that generate permanent revenue flows while others, that are not profitable but essential for people, will remain ignored. This is why Rosselló had the great idea of amending the law to accept non-solicited proposals from the private sector. In this way the private sector can present its own initiatives to “resolve problems.”
With respect to the laws which further degrade the conditions of the workers, they represent measures to restore profitability by reverting back the clock on conquests of the working class through more than a century of struggle. They want to drag us back to the conditions of our great, great grandparents!
As we can see, the development solution they seek is to reduce salaries, increase the working day and privatize any profitable public resource. The capitalist project is unsustainable. For over a decade unemployment has increased the even bourgeois economists express that a “recovery” will not be seen until 2034. They cannot refute the reduction of trade activity or the increase in bankruptcies while the working class continues to carry the brunt of the crisis.
The economic development for which we communist workers fight is based on a plan in which the State invests in the creation of guaranteed employment, with a setting of wages determined by a committee of worker-citizens on the basis of a current and realistic calculation of the basic basket of consumption goods. We demand a plan in which the only reduction of the working day will be without a wage reduction and for the the free enjoyment of family time for the working class. We demand a plan in which all public resources are geared towards generating wealth that satisfies the needs of the exploited and marginalized of this country.
The independent and revolutionary reorganization of the working class is urgent! A plan for economic development such as what we demand is only possible by means of the taking of political power by the working class. Workers must set their priorities to the taking of political power as the only possibility to redirect public policy towards the interests of the majority!