May 1, 2013

Take Solidarity Action with US Labor for International Workers Day!

News

Join US Labor and Take Action against Anti-Worker, Anti-Union, Pro-Privatization Legislation in El Salvador! While thousands of people take to the streets for immigrant and workers' rights in the US, 70,000+ Salvadorans and CISPES delegates are marching in honor of May Day, International Workers Day, to stop Washington's latest economic disaster from plowing through the Salvadoran legislature. The sweeping privatization legislation known as the Public-Private Partnership Law ("P3 Law") - vigorously pushed by the US Ambassador to El Salvador - proposes to sell off the country's public water, healthcare, education, ports and highways to the highest transnational bidder.

This morning, Salvadorans read a strong solidarity statement against the P3 Law signed by 20 US unions, labor councils and labor organizations in their major daily newspaper. At yesterday's meeting with the US Embassy in San Salvador, the CISPES Labor Solidarity Delegation delivered a letter from Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, along with a packet of letters from the UE, UWUA, Jobs with Justice and other unions and labor organizations, demanding a stop to US pressure for the P3.

TAKE ACTION TODAY! Raise your voice alongside the US labor movement to broadcast the message loud and clear: Stop pushing the P3 Law on El Salvador!

1. Call Secretary of State John Kerry at (202) 647-5291 and tell him the US has no business threatening to block millions in development aid if El Salvador doesn't approve the pro-corporation, anti-union, anti-worker Public-Private Partnership law. Use the short, sample script below.

2. Click here to email Secretary Kerry to let him know that the US has no right to condition its aid on this sweeping privatization legislation.

Sample Phone Script

Secretary Kerry:

I am shocked and angered by the State Department's attempts to force the government of El Salvador to pass the proposed anti-union, anti-worker legislation, known as the Public-Private Partnership Law. The blatant threats to withhold millions in Millennium Challenge development aid, repeatedly stated to the Salvadoran media by Ambassador Aponte, violate the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people and government to decide their position on this law without coercion by the US State Department.

I call on the US State Department to:

1) Stop using international aid money to manipulate El Salvador’s sovereign democratic process.

2) Stop pressuring the Salvadoran government to pass the Public-Private Partnership Law.

Thank you.

Read More Background on the P3 Law:

P3 Fact Sheet

Labor Notes: "US Intervention in El Salvador, by Privatization This Time"