General strike plans taking shape

The PPP conference had been slated for Oct. 15-16 at the Convention Center to showcase investment opportunities for specific local projects. The Fortuño administration is making a push for PPPs to undertake much-needed infrastructure projects and repairs that the government simply cannot afford. The conference will likely be held later this month.

The Coalición Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico is made up of labor, religious and civic organizations.

Lutheran Church Bishop Felipe Lozada said the coalition would rally along Roosevelt Avenue between the Plaza Las Américas shopping center and Hiram Bithorn Stadium in Hato Rey.

Puerto Rico Workers Federation President José Rodríguez Báez said multiple marches would be launched from different points in the metropolitan area and would converge near Plaza las Américas. Groups of marchers would set out from points including the Minillas Government Center in Santurce, the Río Piedras Medical Center, Chardón Street, the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, UPR Río Piedras, Luis Muñoz Marín Park and the Golden Mile.

Lozada said the aim is not to cripple business at Plaza las Américas, but to demand the reversal of the more 16,000 government worker layoffs under Law 7 announced by the Fortuño administration last month.

Gov. Luis Fortuño has said the right to demonstrate will be protected but that authorities will not allow essential services to be paralyzed.

“From the street, we call the people into the streets so our people are respected,” Rodríguez Báez said in a press conference.

Asked what union leaders planned for after the general strike, Rodríguez Báez said: “The island is becoming ungovernable and those who don’t want to hear are going to have to listen … if there are no changes after Oct. 15, we are going to come out stronger.”

Other unions aim to cripple business at Plaza las Américas

In related news, a separate coalition of labor groups said it will aim to paralyze economic activity around Plaza las Américas as part of the general strike convened for Thursday.

The protest by the Coordinadora Sindical and the Frente Amplio de Solidaridad y Lucha aims to bring the commercial hub around the Caribbean’s largest shopping center to a halt.

Luis Pedraza Leduc, spokesman for the Coordinadora Sindical, confirmed that the aim of the protest is to cripple business. The demonstration is apparently separate from the protests being organized by the Coalición Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico.

“There will not be any economic activity there and that is what we are going to make happen,” Leduc said in a press conference.

He said protesters are going to gather at 9 a.m. Thursday outside busy retail outlets including Kmart, Office Max, Toys R Us and others.

Leduc said the Fonalledas family, which owns Plaza las Américas, and Banco Popular President Richard Carrión, who was a member of Gov. Luis Fortuño’s Fiscal & Economic Reconstruction Advisory Council, must be made to feel the claims of the fired government workers.