Organizing among
Puerto Rican workers in their
homeland and the United States
has been shaped by the way the
island has been incorporated into
the U.S. economy-as a
commonwealth ultimately
controlled by the U.S. Congress.
Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the mainland United States for over a century, and have been involved in labor organizing since they first stepped ashore. Some, for example, came to Florida and New York in the 1890s to work in cigar-making shops, and by the first years of the century had formed the International Cigar Workers “La Resistencia” caucus. During World War I there was labor activity in the small Puerto Rican community employed in munition factories and shipyards in New
York City. Puerto Rican immigrant workers often had
union backgrounds and sought trade unionism as a
viable way to protect their civil rights. The history of the
Puerto Rican labor movement in the United States can
thus be traced to the first small wave of Puerto Rican
immigration.
Trade union organizing among Puerto Rican workers
in their homeland and the United States has been shaped
by the partial way that the island has been incorporated
into the U.S. economy. A Spanish colony for four cen-
turies, the island of Puerto Rico became a U.S. posses-
Hector Figueroa is Assistant Research Director at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Washington, D.C.
A young worker in a garment sweatshop in Brooklyn.
sion following the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917,
and after a series of political reforms, the island became
a commonwealth in 1952-a U.S. colony with a self-
elected government ultimately controlled by the U.S.
Congress.
Following the U.S. invasion in 1898, an already exist-
ing labor movement in Puerto Rico won recognition of
the colonial government and established direct ties with
U.S. labor. By 1901 the first large labor confederation,
the Free Federation of Workers (FLT), was established
and became affiliated with the American Federation of
Labor (AFL). The FLT, closely tied to the Puerto Rican
Socialist Party, dominated the island’s labor movement
for three decades until 1940 when it was challenged by
a new federation, the General Confederation of Workers
(CGT).
Throughout the first half of the century there was con-
tinual labor unrest on the island. As U.S. sugar compa-
VOL XXX. No 3 Nov/DEC 1996 29REPORT ON LATINO LABOR
nies transformed Puerto Rico into a virtual plantation, thousands
of sugar-cane workers employed by multina-
tional companies conducted a series of massive strikes.
These strikes were often violent and were frequently conducted against
the wishes of the FLT leadership.
Many, like the sugar workers’ strike of 1934, enjoyed
the support of anti-imperialist organizations like Pedro
Albizu Campos’ Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
Other workers engaging in significant union activity were
the longshoremen, who conducted an island-wide
strike in 1938. The striking workers had the support of
the Puerto Rican Communist Party, and received the
support of U.S. maritime workers as well. The Congress
of International Organizations (CIO) sent representa-
tives to Puerto Rico to support the longshoremen, and to
In the immediate
postwar period,
over half of Puerto
Rican workers in
the United States
were members of
unions. They
typically formed
separate caucuses
to fight for their
rights as Puerto
Rican workers.
recruit them into the CIO. A major producer of sugar for the U.S. market during the 1930s and 1940s, the island’s econ- omy was transformed
after World War II as fac-
tories began to replace
plantations under an eco-
nomic arrangement that
anticipated many aspects
of the current US-
Mexico maquiladora
program. With the indus-
trialization of the island, which coincided with the
decline of the agricultur-
al sector, large numbers
of Puerto Ricans went to
the United States to
reside permanently or
work in the fields as seasonal migrant workers.
During the 1930s Puerto Rican women in New York
entered garment and apparel industries and joined the
unions, and during World War II there was a large influx
of mainland Puerto Ricans into the National Maritime Union and the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union. The immediate postwar period saw over half of
Puerto Rican workers in the United States within
unions. And because of the racism and discrimination
they confronted within the labor movement, they typi- cally formed separate caucuses to fight for their rights
as Puerto Rican-or Latino-workers.
During the 1950s Puerto Rican workers in the United States (at least half of them women) were concentrated
in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors such as appar-
el, electrical, toys and novelties, shoes, furniture and
mattress assembly. They also worked in the maritime
trades, food and hotels, laundry services, distribution,
baking, meat packing and as domestic workers. These
workers generally earned low wages and were
employed within the harshest and lowest-paid labor sec-
tors in New York City. Forty years later, the situation
remains the same with most Puerto Rican workers con-
centrated in labor-intensive manufacturing or low-wage
services.
In Puerto Rico, economic transformation gained
momentum during the early 1950s as U.S. companies in
labor-intensive production like textiles and apparel relo-
cated from the northeast United States to the island.
Many of these companies were insubstantial “fly-by-
night” operations in search of quick profits by way of
cheap labor and significant tax breaks. The movement of
companies became massive under
the island’s new commonwealth sta-
tus (1952) and its economic develop-
ment program, Operation Bootstrap.
With the new companies came U.S.
unions-some affiliated with the
AFL and some with the CIO (the two
labor federations merged in 1954).
Later, some affiliated with the inde-
pendent Teamsters. These unions
often competed with each other, and
more significantly with local unions
belonging to the CGT or other
smaller organizations. U.S. unions
were sometimes brought in by the
companies themselves, or by the
Commonwealth government to act
as less militant alternatives to Puerto
Rican unions.
In the 1960s, the industries attract-
ed to the island-mainly petrochem-
icals and pharmaceuticals-were increasingly capital-
intensive. Although social services and rising wages
increased the standard of living for many, thousands of
Puerto Ricans were displaced from both agriculture and
from the labor-intensive manufacturing that briefly
flourished in the 1950s. Puerto Rico’s dependent indus-
trialization simply could not absorb the displaced agri-
cultural workers who were forced to leave the island in
order to survive. Many subsequently found work in U.S.
agriculture, as well as in factories and services, mostly
in New York and New Jersey.
Puerto Rican migration has produced a divided nation.
Over a third of the Puerto Rican population now lives in
the United States, mostly concentrated in a few mid-
Atlantic States. New York State alone accounts for 40%
of all Puerto Ricans on the mainland. Yet, while divided
by geography, Puerto Rican workers in the United States
and in Puerto Rico have maintained significant ties.
Many workers have migrated back and forth between the
mainland and the island, and labor unions have main-
tained close ties either through membership in a common
U.S. union, or through cooperative relations with coun-
terparts representing workers employed by common
employers. These ties were not always friendly.
Throughout the 1950s and the 1960s the rivalry among
AFL-CIO and Puerto Rican independent unions eventu-
ally resulted in a dual trade union structure that severely
weakened the labor movement on the island, particularly
within the private sector.
During the 1970s the United States and much of the
global economy entered a severe recession. The reces-
sion was particularly harsh in Puerto Rico. Many of the
manufacturing and chemical companies that had estab-
lished operations on the island closed down or relocated
marching in a New York City Puerto Rico Day parade in 1974.
in the lower-wage countries of Latin America, the
Caribbean or Asia. This resulted in massive unemploy-
ment-as high as 25%-among Puerto Rican workers.
In the process, many unionized facilities disappeared
almost overnight, and unions like the International
Ladies Garment Workers (ILGWU) lost thousands of
members in less than a decade. And while new tax
incentives eventually attracted high-tech and pharma-
ceutical companies back to Puerto Rico, the labor move-
ment found it increasingly difficult to organize private-
sector workers. Many of the new companies were
escaping unions in the United States, and they effective-
ly opposed unionization on the island. Union density
within the manufacturing sector in Puerto Rico eventu-
ally declined from 30% representation in 1970 to less
than 5% by 1990.
While private-sector unionism collapsed throughout
the 1970s and 1980s, public-sector unionism became
the focus of a renewed, albeit brief labor militancy
[see “Government Workers in Puerto Rico,” p. 30].
Trade unions within the public utility sector such as the
Independent Electrical Workers Union (UTIER), associ-
ations within the public sector such as the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT), and public service unions
like the National Health Care Workers Union (UNTS)
conducted significant union organizing or contract
fights throughout the second half of the 1970s and into
the 1980s. As in previous decades some of the most mil-
itant trade union activity was carried out by independent
unions, often closely tied to the independence move-
ment through the Independence Party or the Socialist
Party, or through smaller left organizations. However,
the lack of a collective bargaining law within the public
sector, and the emergence of a large service, banking
and commercial sector with little if any union represen-
tation, severely limited the potential for the resurgence
of Puerto Rico’s labor movement.
The hospital workers’ Local 1199 has be
a leading union within the Puerto Ri(
community, and powerful municipal ur
like the Transport Workers Union (TWU)
elected Puerto Ricans to the highes
leadership levels.
Another obstacle to a resurgence of Puerto Rico’s
labor movement was-and remains-the lack of unity
within organized labor in the island. While the 1970s
saw efforts like the creation of the United Labor
Movement (MOU) emerge, these were short lived. It
was not until the 1980s with the creation of the Council
of Trade Union Organizations (COS) that AFL-CIO
unions, as well as independent federations and unions
began to conduct more unified trade union work.
The recession of the 1970s also undermined the gains
made by the large number of Puerto Rican workers in
New York City. The city’s fiscal crisis was resolved with
significant cuts in services and austerity measures that
last to this day. The crisis was partly the result of capital
flight away from the city in search of low-wage, non-
union labor in the U.S. south and southwest, as well as
overseas. As a result, Puerto Rican workers faced the
prospect of permanent unemployment and a deteriorat-
ing city environment. The manufacturing sector, a prin-
cipal source of employment for Puerto Ricans, declined
dramatically in this period. The service sector grew, but
offered professional white collar jobs which were by
and large not available to Puerto Rican or black workers
with insufficient formal education.
During the 1970s, radical Puerto Rican organizations
like the Young Lords Party, El Comit6 MPI, the Puerto
Rican Socialist Party and others helped develop militant
trade unionists who fought racism and poverty among
Puerto Rican workers. More radical unions developed
such like the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement
(HRUM). These unions were short lived but helped link
the struggle of Puerto Rican workers to that of blacks
and other minorities, and to the liberation and labor
struggle in Puerto Rico. These efforts also were instru-
mental in the creation of the Hispanic Labor Committee
to address Latino labor issues in the city, as well as the
creation of the Puerto Rican Labor Task Force of the
National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights.
In the meantime, Puerto Rican workers managed to
find employment in specific segments of the still-grow-
ing service sector. Over 25% of health care workers in
New York City, for example, are Latinos.
The hospital workers Local 1199 has
come become a leading union within the Puerto
Rican community, and powerful municipal
:an unions like the Transport Workers Union
(TWU) have elected Puerto Ricans to the iions highest leadership levels. And while gar-
) have ment manufacturing has declined substan-
tially, the fact that New York remains a
t world fashion center has kept a significant
part of the industry in the city. Many Puerto
Ricans and other Latinos have assumed
positions of leadership within locals of the
two major garment unions, the ILGWU and
ACTWU, which recently merged to become UNITE.
[See “Unions” p. 22].
Still, the transformation of the economy during the
1970s and later in the 1980s resulted in a declining
union density, particularly for Puerto Ricans and other
Latinos who found themselves underrepresented in the
largely unionized public sector. In addition, the fastest
growing sectors of New York’s economy-finance,
insurance and real estate, as well as personal and busi-
ness services-have been among the least unionized.
Outside of New York City, in the orchards and veg-
etable farms of New York State and northern New
Jersey, efforts to organize Puerto Rican migrant workers
have met with success. A union called the Committee in
Support of Agricultural Workers (known by its Spanish
initials, CATA) has organized about 5,000 workers and
is now recognized by the AFL-CIO and a number of
local growers. CATA has been at work since 1979, and
its efforts to unionize the hard-to-organize migrant pop-
ulation are finally beginning to pay off.
The challenges are clear, and as the interests of Puerto
Ricans, all Latinos, all immigrants and all workers come
together, organizers schooled in years of hard experi-
ence will be in a position to meet them head on.
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