Jose La Luz testifies on ending La Junta

Good afternoon.

My name is Jose La Luz.

I'm a lifelong labor organizer.

I was one of the leaders of the multi-union coalition that achieved collective bargaining rights for 120,000 public workers in Puerto Rico.

I want to offer three compelling reasons to end the fiscal control board, or as we call it, La Junta in Puerto Rico.

And I echo most, if not all, of what has been said throughout the entire morning.

The board has failed to restore the essential conditions for economic growth and recovery.

And that's very serious.

It has prevented the massive investment that rebuilding of the infrastructure for the electrical grid and water supply requires.

And the draconian austerity measures, it has imposed exacerbated existing wealth and income inequality, which have taken an enormous toll

on working families throughout the archipelago.

Its actions have fostered the privatization of essential public utilities and public services.

imposing a burden on the rapidly declining standard of living for working families and the middle class, while incomes and wages have remained stagnant.

Its very existence, that is the existence of La Junta, has prevented

fundamentally the development of a lasting solution to the economic and financial crisis which will require

a political alternative predicated on the exercise of self-determination and putting an end to colonialism in accordance with international law under the supervision of the United Nations.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify.