Uruguay: power through repression

The Republic of Uruguay is a small South Aifieri-
can nation, 117,508 square kilometres in terntory,
with a population of barely 2,760,000. A history
of civil and independence wars in the nineteenth cen-
tury moulded its people, whose roots lie in old Spain
but whose character grew with the infusion of liberal
and revolutionary ideas from Europe, until the nation
achieved an unparalleled level of political, social and
economic life, for America, in the first 30 years of the
20th Century.

Uruguay was known around the world as “the
Switzerland of America’’-right up to the 1950s, be-
cause of its liberal bourgeois form of democratic
government, in which the public could express itself
through free democracy. Free speech was protected
by the constitution, just as the constitution also pro-
tected the right to hold meetings and the workers
right to organize their own unions, without any inter-
ference from the state or police. The constitution also
supported the workers’ right to strike as a last defence
of their interests.

The constitution also contained articles safeguard-
ing human rights, such as the right to life, to work and
to proper conditions for a decent life for citizens and
their families.

By 1925, Uruguay’s dollar was worth 90 cents USS.
Electrical power, telephones, savings banks, insur-
ance, railways, customs, public works and the water
supply had all been nationalized. As a gesture of real
autonomy, the government of the day declared a
moratorium on foreign debt during the capitalist
world economic crisis of 1929-1932.

Later it created by law the National Fuel, Alcohol
and Cement Company, designed to make the country
independent by controlling production and sale of
fuel, cement and alcohol derivatives. As a state
monopoly, ANCAP became primarily concerned
with oil refining and distribution.

The Bank of the Republic, controlling the national
economy and public credit, took charge of the coun-
try’s money supply; the Credit Bank took over loans
etc. There was an Institute. for Pensions. The law
decided minimum salaries, the right to strike and to
hold meetings. As for education, 90.3% of the people
were literate and the University of the Republic had
already admitted students into its faculty council and
central university government 10 years,before. the
Reform of Cordoba. 3 ae

The University of the Republic operated with ideo-

Be

Since the f
country.

ascist coup of 1973 m

logical pluralism, developing its own teaching body
and encouraging philosophical and political thought.
It enjoyed a high level of debate, critically analysing
national affairs and suggesting solutions. Of course,
there had been total separation of church and state
since the beginning of the century. Education was
totally free at all levels, and it was obligatory up to the

sixth grade. This was the democratic and pluralist

government which other countries took as a model.

Although the nation was predominantly agricul-
tural since the start of colonial times, it began con-
siderable industrial development from the Second
World War until around 1960, when symptoms of a
crisis began to develop that led to the fascist dictator-
ship of June, 1973. :

The country made money during the Second World
War and the Korean War, but this prosperity, through
the structure of economic and political dependency,
could not last.

Crisis came. At the same time the strong and united
working class began to challenge the oligarchic
government. Incapable of handling the crisis and af-
raid of growing mass actions, the government sought
help in dictatorship, obeying, of course, imperialist
strategy for the Southern Cone and with the support

ore than 50,000 have passed through Uruguay’s jails, 5-800,000 have fled the

of foreign military. This time it was a fascist dictator-
ship.

The working class responded with a general strike
of 15 days, with the support of students and most
sectors of the people. Though this could not stop the
fascist offensive, it made sure that fascism would
have no social or political base in the country.

The economic crisis and its effect on social life
grew. Fascism kept power through repression. The
Uruguayan people, with its workers in the lead, or-
ganized through its national workers’ convention
(CNT), offered an example of resistance which has
never been broken, in spite of the terror, and which
has achieved great international solidarity.

Uruguay has two and a half million people, seven
thousand of them are political and union prisoners.
Between 500,000 and 800,000 citizens, most of them .
young professionals, technicians or skilled workers,
have had to emigrate because of the crisis and the
persecutions. It is calculated that around 50,000
people, since 1973, have passed through the jails of
Uruguay. And in spite of the economic catastrophe,
the state spends more than 50% of its national budget
on its military aparatus. Uruguay is the most militar-
ized country in America.

All labor will be watching CUPE’s convention

Canada’s largest union, the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, meets in Convention this week in the windy
city of Winnipeg. Advance billing suggests that the con-
vention will vie with the famous corner of Main and
Portage in the-matter of wind velocity.

Delegates representing 260,000 Canadian workers will
face some of the toughest decisions in the relatively short
history of this Cinderella union. : :

_CUPE grew rather easily, as trade unions go. This
attested to the scandalous wages and working conditions
faced by provincial and municipal employees, ina period
of fast rising prices and inflation. Public workers desper-
ately needed a union and CUPE was in place to organize
them. ; :

The recent history of the Canadian trade union
movement shows that the record of CUPE in defending
and extending the economic and in-plant needs of its
members is second to none. Through determined bar-
gaining and, where necessary, strikes, often prolonged
and difficult, the union has succeeded in lifting up the
wages and working conditions of its members to levels at
least approaching those of fellow workers in the or-

: ganized private sector. At the same time they have gone
a long way to overcoming the “public servant” relation-
ships between their members and the medieval bureauc-
tracy which ‘‘bosses”’ the public service area.

Nor has this been any easy job. Unscrupulous
governments and willing media have spared no effort to
turn a long suffering public against public employees,
Pretending that it is their demands which are the cause 0
escalating taxes. They obscure at the same time the ever
diminishing contribution of big business to local tax re-

aoe bl loyees administering an over-

“Overpaid public employees n ove
extended public service industry’, is now the major
theme of the Chamber of Commerce litany, !n at
Campaign to cut back on the living standards of a
Canadians.

Reaganomics is aimed right at the heart of social ser-

Labor in action
William Stewart

vices and at the same time public employees. Canada
lags not too far behind.

Thus a relatively new union, with a relatively new and

‘inexperienced membership, finds itself in the eye of the
storm as monopoly gears up to make the working people

pay for its self-administered crisis.

It is this crisis of the system, and the government
monopoly proposed solutions, that are putting excessive
pressure on CUPE, as they are on the Public Service
Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and all public employees’
unions, and bringing to the surface weaknesses in the
fighting trim and structure of the organizations.

It will be a critical test of CUPE at this convention to
react in atimely way to these problems, make the neces-
sary adjustments, strengthen the unity of its member-
ship, and the rest of the trade union and labor movement.

It is perhaps inevitable that precisely at such moments
in the life of any organization there appear as many
solutions as they have members. When they have all
been put through the sifter, however, they come under
three categories. Policy, leadership, organization.

To what extent do the present policies of CUPE serve
the membership in these difficult times? To what extent
is there a need for changes in leadership to carry through
existing or new policies? To what extent are the present
structures of the union designed to head into the difficult
battles ahead? :

CUPE watchers will have undoubtably noticed, in the

flurry of preparations for the convention, that different
trends have surfaced emphasizing one or another of
these problems. There are those who opine that the
present structures of the union are so out of whack with
reality that it doesn’t matter who is elected, or what
policies are decided, nothing will change or happen.

There are others who place the entire responsibility
for difficulties at the doorstep of the elected leadership,
or alternately at the doorstep of the staff. The structural-
ists in the union range from those who want to make the
union an amalgam of 10 provinces with the: national
officers glorified mail handlers, to those who argue that
that is all they really are at this time, since the staff runs
the show as soon as the conventions have taken place.
They speak of the union as **five days democracy’ and
the balance of two years the autocratic control of the
staff, and even more curtailed than that, the control by
the staff union. :

Thése observations are clearly greatly magnified and
not too helpful in getting at solutions. At the same time,
however, they all contain certain elements of truth and
will have to be dealt with to get at the critical changes
which will have to be made to serve it for the upcoming
struggles.

The entire trade union movement in Canada owes an
expression of appreciation to CUPE for its role in mili-
tant wage struggles, for its role in policy orientations, for
its role in helping to fan the flames of Canadian au-
tonomy, for its role in emphasizing rank and file trade-
unionism when high handed bureaucracy was more the
style in many unions.

If the union is to continue to live up to its past record it
will need to carefully update its policies, strengthen its
leadership and overcome structural deficiencies which
hinder it from unitedly facing a hostile employer and a
hostile state — and that way come through for its mem-
bership.

All organized labor will be watching this convention
with high hopes and best wishes for its outcome.

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 9, 1981—Page 5