FMPR Defeats SEIU Fake-Boss-Union!
On October 23, in Puerto Rico, the independent teachers union, FMPR, won an amazing victory against an SEIU affiliate, the SPM.
SEIU’s budget: btw. $10 & 20 million; organizers on the ground 300+
FMPR’s budget: $65,000 ($30,000 borrowed); organizers: mostly volunteers
The school principal’s organization, Asociación de Maestros, created a union—SPM—to legally run against FMPR. SPM affiliated with SEIU in December, 2007. SEIU/SPM saturated the island with promises, food and gifts to gain support. Seeing they would lose in a fair election, they engineered the courts to disallow FMPR’s participation in the election. Thus the teachers had only two choices in the vote: SEIU or no union!
FMPR, under PR law, was serving as a “bonafide” organization—voluntary representative without exclusive collective bargaining rights—since its decertification in January 2008 for taking a strike vote in November 2007 (the union went out on strike for 10 days in February, 2008). Even though a NO vote meant that the teachers were voting for “no union,” such a vote would allow FMPR to continue to play the role of “bonafide.”
FMPR launched an intensive VOTE NO campaign—and won.
The official results: NO—18,123 YES-14,675
FMPR was denied observer status during voting but independents who were able to observe the final count noted that cartons containing “YES” ballots had a significant number of “NO” ballots in the piles. It is estimated that approximately 2000-3000 NO votes were thus converted to YES. The actual vote would more likely be 20,500 to 12,000, a 63% margin of victory.
The FMPR Support Committee-NY picketed SEIU headquarters last week and discovered that many SEIU members were not aware of what their leadership was doing—members and staff stated they did not support raiding—many are disgusted with their leaders. Our NYC Oct.14 picket at SEIU Offices and some shots of the FMPR picket (attacked by the police who were called in by SEIU) at SEIU’s June, 2008 convention on the island, can be viewed on our YouTube posting below.
The words to the song in the Youtube say:
“Tell them no, tell them no. The teachers tell them no. The employer unions are dues-suckers (literal translation)—Without representation. Teachers, vote NO to the company union. Fight for quality education, your rights, etc.”
HELP US CONTINUE THE FIGHT FOR UNION DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL COMPACT UNIONISM! FMPR IS IN DEBT FOR $30,000!
Your generous contributions can be sent (checks payable to “FMPR”) to:
FMPR
Urb. El Caribe
1572 Ave. Ponce de León
San Juan, Puerto Rico 00926-2710
