The company and the union remain far apart on a number of issues, including wages. The remarks of one of the last speakers at the rally got a warm response from many in the crowd. It is a show of strength following the telephone strike and the murder of David Sanes in Vieques, he said. The Navy should leave the entire Caribbean. It's better that they never practice.
Health care is a luxury.
The police are more brutal. We need to organize ourselves everywhere until total liberation. Two of the biggest ovations at Grito de Lares were for the announcements that Lolita Lebron and Rafael Cancel Miranda were present. They each spent a quarter-century in U.S. jails for their uncompromising fight for the independence of Puerto Rico. Lebron was quoted in the press as announcing the formation of an organization of women from different countries in the Americas to support the fight to get the Navy out of Vieques.