By SEAN GRIFFIN

Alfonso Martinez reads through some of the names on the list, his voice edged with accusation:

Salvador Sanchez Hidalgo, leader of the Unitarian Confedera- tion of Salvadorean Workers — killed by paramilitary bands; Gerardo Antonio Erazo, leader of the Union Federation of El Salvador — killed by paramilitary bands; Jose Noel Aranibal, An- tonio Alas, Roberto Antonio Seballos, leaders of the bank workers — killed by the security forces of the junta; Hector Benabe Recinos, Jorge Hernandex, Rene Azahar, Julian Alberto Lizama, Carlow Bonillo Ortiz, leaders of Salvadorean union federations — in jail or disappeared . . .

The list goes on — for pages.

For Alfonso Martinez, the general secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions of Food, Clothing Textile and Allied Workers of El Salvador, the list has come ominously closer in the months since the military-Christian Democratic junta of Jose Duarte launched the wave of official violence.

One of Martinez’ closest friends and associates, also a union leader, was tortured and finally killed by the security forces last year.

Also last year, as the five- member delegation from the Com- mittee for Trade Union Unity (CUS) was to leave El Salvador to begin a solidarity tour of Europe and North America, one. of the delegation members, Alejandro Molina Lara, the general secretary of the Trade Union of Fishermen, was kidnapped. He has disap- peared.

And when Martinez returns to El Salvador — next month after a tour of Europe — he will be forced immediately to go ‘ound, and to give up his official position as leader of the union federation. Already he has been a target of the security forces and the right wing paramilitary bands that aid them and his return will heighten the danger.

“It is very dangerous to come on this tour,’’ Martinez says in an in- terview during a stop in Van- couver, ‘‘but it is very necessary. People must understand the strug- gle of workers in El Salvador.”

Martinez was in Vancouver with Mario Nerio, the Canadian representative of the Committee for Trade Union in El Salvador (CUS) which was formed in May, 1980 as the co-ordinating body for several trade union federations.

According t2 Martinez, CUS now takes in 220,000 workers and represents 85 percent of the organized labor force of El Salvador.

But the price of growing unity has been barbaric repression by the Duarte regime.

The roots of the Salvadorean trade union movement go back to 1920 although trade unions have only been legal since 1952. In the 1930’s, Salvadorean peasants and coffee plantation workers were organized under the leadersip of the renowned Farabundo Marti — whose name is now carried by the liberation army — but he was ex-

ecuted by a firing squad only days ,

before a planned uprising. More than 30,000 peasants were murdered in the months that followed as the military, in alliance with the “‘Big 14”’ banking and cof- fee oligarchy, launched a near- genocidal wave of repression.

In the 1960’s trade union strug- gles were part of the revolutionary upsurge that swept Latin America and Martinez, now 44, himself * took part as a textile workers and a

El Salvador troops, aided by a member of a right-wing paramilitary band (at left, without helmet) con- duct operations in a San Salvador street. :

EI Salvador unions: unity in the face of repression

he was arrested for his activities — in 1960, ’63 and ’65. In 1963, he was held for 42 days and was tor- tured by the military dictatorship of Colonel Julio Rivera.

But it was in the latter part of the 70s that a wave of organizing and strikes swept the country, signall- ing the decisive role that the trade union movement has come to play in El Salvador.

For years, trade unionists had sought to wrest collective agreements from employers, in- cluding the U.S. Japanese and Italian multinational corporations that have set up shop in the coun- try. But as a direct result of the decades-old alliance between the ruling circles and the military, strikes were usually forced to end at gunpoint. The unemployed were rounded up by the army and sent in to run the factories. And the strike leaders were often executed.

In the face that terror, the trade union movement adopted new tac- tics.. Martinez explains:

“In 1979, there was a series of strikes to support demands for higher wager and salaries. Each time, the military would surround

TRIBUNE PHOTO—SEAN GRIFFIN

ALFONSO MARTINEZ.

the factory, threatening the

workers. “But the Sathetd adopted the

tactic of occupying the plant with

the factory manager and the

clerical staff still inside. Then they would -send the manager or sometimes even the factory owner outside to warn the soldiers to disperse.

“Through these tactics, they were able to win increased wages and the reinstatment of workers.”’

He recalls a strike in August, 1979 at CONTX SA, a textile plant owned by a Japanese multina- tional, in which he was the negotiator for the strikers. Eight hundred workers, most of them women, took over the factory, held the owner and manager hostage and demanded negotiations.

‘In seven days we areable to win a new contract,’’ he remembers.

In another strike at the Molenos flour mill, he negotiated for the strikers who occupied the mill to demand higher wages. They won a new agreement in eight days.

That same year, public sector workers began to. organize en masse in El Salvador and began in-

‘siisolitia to untee El Salvador tintons de-

trade union militant. Three times spite draconian labor laws and military repression. PACIFIC TRIBUNE— MAY 1, 1981—Page 16 ;

itiating strikes for the first time in their history. Incensed, the ruling junta retaliated with a series of anti- labor decrees which grew quickly, one upon the other, in direct response to the militant actions of the trade union movement.

Decree 296, passed in the early months of 1980, manned. all organizing and strikes by public sector workers. Decree 366, which summarily dissolved the unions in state corporations, was passed in August, 1980 to outlaw a strike by electrical workers whose national walkout threatened to cut off elec- tricity throughout the country.

That was followed swiftly by Decree 44 which gave legislative sanction for the military to move in and assume control of any factories or work sites deemed ‘‘essential’’ by the junta and made the workers subject to martial law; and by Decree 507 which denied workers the right to negotiate collective agreements, froze their wages and imposed draconian penalties on Strikers.

The events of August, 1980 were also a critical test for the Commit- tee for Trade Unity, founded only three months earlier in May, as the co-ordinating centre for nine trade union federations.

For two days, from Aug. 12-14, CUS paralyzed key industries across the country with a general strike that involved 70 percent of the organized workers. of El Salvador.

The strike was called off after two days and although some leaders were fired from their jobs, the mass protest symbolized the unity that had been achieved — embracing even one of the three federations that is outside CUS, the AFL-led Federation of Union of Construction and Transport

. (FESINCONSTRANS).

“Tn our discussion with FESIN- CONSTRANS we have reached agreement on five points of the CUS program. It was on those five points that the general strike was called,’’ Martinez says.

They are:

e Opposition to Duarte’s state of siege throughout the country;

e Opposition to the repression of trade unions and the church;

e There-opening of the national university;

e Reform of the labor code;

e Increases in wages.

The CUS has many more points _ in its program of opposition to the —

regime but its on the basis of those five that it seeking further action and unity.

eerhe objective is to establish one trade union federation, like the CUT in Chile, united under one banner,’’ he says.

The economic crisis that has

gripped El Salvador — the junta’s own economic advisor told the Inter-American Development

Bank this month that unless $480

million in aid were granted, col- lapse was ‘‘imminent’’ — has in- tensified the trade union struggle inside the country.

“The cost of living in El Salvador rose by 300 percent in the last year,’’ Martinez states, citing the increases in the price of rice and- beans — the two staple foods of Salvadoreans — as examples.

“Beans which sold for 18 cents a pound in 1980 are now 60 cents. Rice, which was 10 cents a pound, is now 80 cents,”’ he says.

“But the minimum wage is only $4.40 a day.” -

Unemployment in El Salvador is ~

estimated at between 70 and 80 per- cent with plants shutting down of curtailing staff and firing workers.

That -economic repression —

coupled with the relentless persecu- tion of workers and union leaders

has, however, often strengthed —

the opposition to the regime.

Martinez emphasizes that hun- dreds of workers persecuted, fired from their jobs or who are facing arrest have left to join the armed struggle.

Many workers, particularly young men, ‘‘are persecuted simply because they are young — and the

military believe that they must be ~

guerillas,’’ he adds.

And under the state of siege that : is El Salvador, others are hounded —

because they are wearing running shoes or packsacks — ‘‘because, to

the military, that is what guerillas —

wear.”’

““who were —

In those conditions, the youth of the country, students or workers,

have no future except in the opposi-

tion movement—andinthelibera-

tion army.

The CUS is also part of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR), formed last year to unite all

those organizations opposing the |

Duarte regime. And like the representatives of the FDR which have alerted the world to the grave danger of U.S. intervention, the CUS has called on international trade union solidarity — both to support the trade unionists’ strug- gle and to avert the threat of in- tervention.

While in this country, Martinez

and the other members of the — delegation met with several unionists including leaders of ~

federations of labor and the Cana- dian Labor Congress, urging them to undertake various actions in support of CUS. Among them:

© To demand and end to U.S. military aid-to Duarte;

e¢ To condemn the threats of direct military intervention, voiced particularly by secretary of state Alexander Haig;

e¢ To demand an end to Hon- duran and Guatemalan collabora- © tion with the repressive policies of Duarte;

© Todemand freedom for jailed trade unionists and political leaders.

‘*There is a great danger of U.S. intervention,’ Martinez affirms, showing a copy of a cable he just received which states that 400 Puer- to Rican soldiers have been sent to the Panama Canal the launch point for the U.S. “‘rapid deployment force.”’

‘But the solidarity of peoples around the world is very impor- tant. And the solidarity with our struggle has never been stronger.”’