Puerto Rico

How Washington Helped Create Puerto Rico’s Staggering Debt Crisis

July 15, 2015 Michael A. Fletcher and Steven Mufson, www.washingtonpost.com Resist! Austerity, Debt, Finance and the Economy, Puerto Rico

By Michael A. Fletcher and Steven Mufson in The Washington Post - The sprawling pharmaceutical plants nestled in the hills of this town west of San Juan are testament to the unusual nature of this island’s struggling economy. The factories once employed a small army of highly trained workers that would be the envy of many other places in the United States. But those jobs — for engineers, chemists and others skilled in precision manufacturing — have been rapidly disappearing for largely the same reason they came here in the first place: policy decisions made in Washington. A generous series of tax breaks enacted by Congress shielded the profits of U.S. corporations operating here and helped transform Puerto Rico from a largely agrarian society to a manufacturing powerhouse. But what Washington gave, it also took away.

National Science Foundation Researcher Fired For Political Activism

September 13, 2014 Mark Strauss, www.io9.com Educate! Education, Freedom of Speech, Puerto Rico

Valerie Barr, a professor of computer science at Union College, decided last summer to take a leave of absence to join the National Science Foundation and help improve science education among undergraduates. But when a background check revealed her involvement in left-wing groups 30 years ago, she was told to leave. News of Barr's dismissal comes three months after a respected policy analyst was fired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory following complaints about an anti-nuclear article that he had written. And, now according to a report in ScienceInsider, Valerie Barr's colleagues worry that her experience will have a chilling effect on efforts to recruit other scientists under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA)—which allows academics to temporarily work for NSF without quitting their existing jobs.

Puerto Rico Unions Threaten Strike Against Austerity Budget

June 14, 2014 Yana Kunichoff, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Austerity, Puerto Rico, Strike, Unions

Public union workers from a handful of unions across Puerto Rico have spent the last week blocking ports, shutting down thoroughfares and slowing public transit. But that may be just the beginning: In the coming week, workers are expected to vote on whether to hold a general strike across the country. The unions are standing against the austerity budget proposed this spring by members of the U.S. commonwealth’s General Assembly to deal with the country’s recent bond downgrade and looming payment of its debts to bondholders. The Fiscal Sustainability Act of the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as the budget is called, would allow the government to bring in “emergency powers” to deal with the crisis. Under this authority, it could renegotiate all public employees’ contracts, liquidate unused sick days, and freeze salaries—thereby gutting workers’ collective bargaining powers. Privatizing the commonwealth’s electrical company, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, has also been placed on the table as an option for stanching the crisis; the emergency measures would also include closing 100 public schools. The budget must be passed on June 30 to coincide with the beginning of the 2015 fiscal year on July 1. And as that deadline nears, unions across the island have been escalating their protests.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources