NEW YORK CITY, May 14—Nearly 150 rank-and-file workers from a dozen NYC unions attended a teach-in on the massive $72 billion debt crisis in Puerto Rico. The teach-in was organized by three U.S. unions whose membership in Puerto Rico has been decimated by austerity measures — SEIU Local 32BJ, AFSCME and the UAW. Showing international working-class solidary, workers listened to the devastation unfolding on our class in Puerto Rico stemming from decades of U.S. imperialism.
The union leaders offered reformist solutions, steering away from revolution. Such devastations are inevitable under capitalism, which staggers from one economic crisis to another. For workers, communist revolution is the only road to a decent life — a life free of debt crisis, unemployment and poverty.
U.S. Imperialism at Work
Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is a direct result of its long history under U.S. imperialist rule. It became a U.S colony in 1898 based on U.S. bosses’ need to keep Latin America — its supposed “backyard” — under its’ economic and military control. Since then, U.S. capitalist bosses has wreacked havoc on workers here, stealing profits off their labor as well as vast resources, all in the name of “democracy.”  
In recent years alone, U.S. companies have extracted hundreds of billions of dollars in profit from Puerto Rico. Pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Proctor & Gamble produce 16 of their 20 top-selling U.S. drugs on the island. These companies have netted $30 billion a year in profits, but pay only four percent of that in taxes. Meanwhile, hedge funds and other investors flock to buy bonds issued by the Puerto Rican government. They pay no taxes on the interest they collect. Needless to say, Puerto Rico’s workers have shouldered much of the taxes these capitalist vultures do not pay!
Given the continued exploitation by U.S. bosses, the country’s economy has unsurprisingly spiraled downward, contracting an average 1.5 percent each year since 2006. Imperialist-in-chief Barack Obama and other capitalist cronies have blamed the crisis on “mismanagement” of the economy. Workers worldwide know better: the crisis is a direct result of decades of U.S. imperialism.
Workers Pay the Price
Workers in Puerto Rico bear the brunt of this exploitation. Inequality is currently higher than in any of the 50 U.S. states; 46 percent of the population lives in poverty. Per capita income is less than half that of Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S., while food prices are often higher because 85 percent of the food is imported. One woman reported that milk is $6 a gallon!
The two major capitalist parties, the New Progressive Party and the Popular Democratic Party, have taken turns reducing pensions for government workers, increasing taxes on water and other essentials and firing thousands of public employees. One hundred schools have been closed, teachers laid off, college tuition increased, and social programs slashed. Most doctors have fled to the U.S. mainland seeking better pay and working conditions. Women and kids suffer the most under these horrible conditions. Over 80 percent of teachers are women and most have families. As is expected under capitalism, the working class in Puerto Rico and worldwide will have the burden of paying back the debts owed.
Phony Solutions
While workers are suffering, billionaire hedge-fund owners are lobbying the U.S. Congress for PROMESA, a bill which would establish an oversight panel similar to the Emergency Managers who’ve wrecked Detroit and Flint, Michigan, to decide what gets spent on schools, hospitals and other vital social services. These austerity measures are meant to secure the bosses’ profits, not alleviate workers’ conditions.
Democrats and the unions say they want to protect pensions, provide stimulus money and extend Medicare and Medicaid payments. These proposals, however, guarantee investors’ profits while continuing to avoid paying taxes, the predatory practice that helped caused the crisis in the first place. If enacted, these proposals might temporarily alleviate some workers’ conditions, but these “solutions” by the unions and Democrats while offering workers a material and ideological buy-in for exploitative class relations, do not get at the root of Puerto Rico’s problem — the capitalist system that drives bosses to exploit workers for profits at any cost. The mis-leaders of unions and liberal parties are not our class friends.
Not surprisingly, the teach-in failed to mention workers’ class struggles here against capitalist exploitation.  In the last two years, teachers, students and parents have walked out of schools and marched on the government to demand an end to school closings, cuts in funding, and lowering of teacher pensions.
While strikes and walk-outs won’t be nearly enough to reverse these massive bosses’ attacks, they can be a learning experience in building a revolutionary communist movement that can one day overthrow the local capitalists and their imperialist masters. If anything, this teach-in showed that international solidarity among the working class is possible, and moreover is needed. In one “brain-storming” session, at the teach-in a woman’s offer of “revolution” as her answer to the crisis was met with enthusiastic applause.
Only a communist revolution would ensure that the working class would no longer carry the racist, sexist burdens of capitalism.