Voices of Color Interview
Gamelyn Oduardo:labor support and women’s leadership are keyStudent striker Gamelyn Oduardo, right, engages with puertorriqueños at UCLA about how the UPR strike succeeded and next steps in building the movement. Photo: Yuisa GimenoGamelyn Oduardo, a law student at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Rio Piedras campus, is a member of the student coordinating committee that led the shut down of 10 UPR campuses from April 21 to June 17, 2010. The successful strike stopped devastating cuts, tuition hikes and privatization. Puerto Rican feminist Yuisa Gimeno interviewed him.
What conditions motivated the strike?
The government imposed neoliberal policies that were crippling all state-owned schools and public services like water and electricity and laid off over 20,000 workers. UPR’s budget was reduced by $300 million in the last 10 years.
Maintenance and clerical workers, and faculty suffered reductions in benefits and salaries and lay-offs. For students, this meant worse conditions and less courses available. The administration was still being paid six digit salaries.
Students mobilized with the support of a 24-hour general strike of all organized sectors. The administration “locked out” all of the campuses for a week, as a “security measure.” As the union leadership backed out from the idea of a more prolonged strike, the student movement turned to itself.
What factors and groups made the strike successful?
Our occupations received massive support from labor unions, LGBT and women’s organizations, parents, religious groups and local and international artists. Action Committees were the building blocks of our strike. Internally, radical democracy was the only way in which we kept united. It is horizontal in structure, deliberation, and the discussion of ideas.
UPR faculty, maintenance and clerical workers unions and the Teacher’s Federation helped us shut down the campus and the off-site central administration office. The more radical union, UTIER (electrical workers), set up a 24-hour campsite outside the campus, provided security, brought food and water and helped keep the picket lines going.
Women were the core and vanguard of the movement and on the front lines. In many cases they were braver than the men. Women were on the coordinating and negotiating committees and held public speaking roles. The next strike is going to be the strike of the women.
As California’s eyes were on UPR, our eyes have been on California. Support from organized students and workers in California was of special importance. Rallies in solidarity throughout the world let us know that we are not alone in the struggle for public education.
What challenges does the movement face now?
The Board of Trustees still insist on imposing a “fee” of $800 to every student, while reducing worker’s benefits and services. Federal Pell grants or loans of students involved in the strike have not been released. We haven’t been able to buy books we need for school, single mothers haven’t been able to pay tuition or the rent. The Legislative Branch has enacted laws to impose restrictions on student assemblies, and propose to prohibit work stoppages at UPR.
We are organizing for another possible strike to defy the administration and take to the streets to fight the neoliberal establishment. Most students are convinced that only through radical reform can the university be fully autonomous.
How can Puerto Rican and U.S. activists work together to build solidarity?
Student activists can play an integral role in bringing people together and raising consciousness of the actions that need to be taken, but we can’t do it alone. We need rank-and-file union members. We can’t stop the capitalist offensive by ourselves. The labor movement moves the machinery of the system and they can stop it — not just for 24 hours but for a long time.
We must exchange ideas and build solidarity in person. Students in California have an open invitation to come and strike with us.
Related story: Puerto Rican student striker tours California
