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| "Residente" of Calle 13 protests with teachers |
This past Christmas Eve, Puerto Rican teachers
received a nasty surprise: they found that their pension plan was being
overhauled, the law passing by a thin margin. This update to the plan was
deemed necessary by creditors and some legislators, as well as Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, since the pensions already
have a deficit of ten billion dollars, and will run out of funding by
2020.
This source of income is all that Puerto Rico's 42,000 current teachers will have to live on once they reach retirement, and is what the current 38,000 beneficiaries have now. Puerto Rico, though a commonwealth of the United States, receives no social security. This legislation was pushed so that the country's bonds would not fall into junk status. A series of steps was outlined, involving the increase in employee contribution from 9 to 10%, a retirement age limit of 62 for teaches already in the workforce. These cuts are being placed in a time when raised taxes, staff cuts, and reforms for other pensions have been enacted in order to try and save an economy in or near recession for about 8 years.
Since January 14th, teachers around Puerto Rico have been on strike, demanding that the reforms be halted. Schools closed and teachers, parents, family, and friends have been in protest. They wonder, "Why weren't the teachers consulted?", "Why did these changes happen so fast?", "Was there proper due process of law?", and perhaps more importantly, "Why is our future specifically the source of attack?"
These are all viable questions to ask. While legislators in Puerto Rico remain some of the top paid workers in the country, the financial security of teachers, people in charge of a crucial task of any nation, is in jeopardy. The reform has been halted, and plans to hear the demands of the protesters seems to be in the works. Granted, Puerto Rico is in debt, and financial reform is needed...but perhaps some creative problem solving could be in order. If you ask me, some of these events seem to mirror our own problems in the U.S...
While I wish the teachers, as well as the entire island of Puerto Rico, success in their endeavors to receive fair compensation for their hard work, I have a few questions of my own to discuss. First of all, while perhaps this is not the most fracturing of breaking news, why is it that Puerto Rican news, as well as news in all of Latin America, seems rather under reported? It's no secret that (most) media sources are consistently biased, and choose what news to report, if it can even be considered news. I did some quick research into this. I pulled up the websites for ABC news, NBS news, NPR, and Fox News. What I found wasn't very hopeful. After some website searching, Fox News and NPR had a Latin American news section. NPR's webpage was filled with mostly socio-political pieces (organic markets, Haitian aftermath, etc.), and Fox News seemed to have this motley collection of drug related stories, scandals involving famous Latino's, U.S./Mexico relations, and the like. I had to specifically search on Google for the reports about el paro de maestros.
Something tells me that there's more to the picture that just these kinds of stories...
I continued to ask myself questions. Why is it that there is such little reporting about Latin America? Why does the U.S. not concern ourselves with countries in our own hemisphere? Why hasn't the U.S. tried to open up communication with Puerto Rico about independence...about anything? Personally, without looking much into this, I see a VERY large lack of communication happening here. I'm concerned, frankly.
These, and more questions, will be discussed throughout the existence of this blog, I do believe.
This source of income is all that Puerto Rico's 42,000 current teachers will have to live on once they reach retirement, and is what the current 38,000 beneficiaries have now. Puerto Rico, though a commonwealth of the United States, receives no social security. This legislation was pushed so that the country's bonds would not fall into junk status. A series of steps was outlined, involving the increase in employee contribution from 9 to 10%, a retirement age limit of 62 for teaches already in the workforce. These cuts are being placed in a time when raised taxes, staff cuts, and reforms for other pensions have been enacted in order to try and save an economy in or near recession for about 8 years.
Since January 14th, teachers around Puerto Rico have been on strike, demanding that the reforms be halted. Schools closed and teachers, parents, family, and friends have been in protest. They wonder, "Why weren't the teachers consulted?", "Why did these changes happen so fast?", "Was there proper due process of law?", and perhaps more importantly, "Why is our future specifically the source of attack?"
These are all viable questions to ask. While legislators in Puerto Rico remain some of the top paid workers in the country, the financial security of teachers, people in charge of a crucial task of any nation, is in jeopardy. The reform has been halted, and plans to hear the demands of the protesters seems to be in the works. Granted, Puerto Rico is in debt, and financial reform is needed...but perhaps some creative problem solving could be in order. If you ask me, some of these events seem to mirror our own problems in the U.S...
While I wish the teachers, as well as the entire island of Puerto Rico, success in their endeavors to receive fair compensation for their hard work, I have a few questions of my own to discuss. First of all, while perhaps this is not the most fracturing of breaking news, why is it that Puerto Rican news, as well as news in all of Latin America, seems rather under reported? It's no secret that (most) media sources are consistently biased, and choose what news to report, if it can even be considered news. I did some quick research into this. I pulled up the websites for ABC news, NBS news, NPR, and Fox News. What I found wasn't very hopeful. After some website searching, Fox News and NPR had a Latin American news section. NPR's webpage was filled with mostly socio-political pieces (organic markets, Haitian aftermath, etc.), and Fox News seemed to have this motley collection of drug related stories, scandals involving famous Latino's, U.S./Mexico relations, and the like. I had to specifically search on Google for the reports about el paro de maestros.
Something tells me that there's more to the picture that just these kinds of stories...
I continued to ask myself questions. Why is it that there is such little reporting about Latin America? Why does the U.S. not concern ourselves with countries in our own hemisphere? Why hasn't the U.S. tried to open up communication with Puerto Rico about independence...about anything? Personally, without looking much into this, I see a VERY large lack of communication happening here. I'm concerned, frankly.
These, and more questions, will be discussed throughout the existence of this blog, I do believe.
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