As they go into
their final year feeding their exotic apetites at the
public’s expense, many of Mireya’s appointees are
paying less and less attention to the real world, but an
increasingly militant labor movement is doing its best to
distract them from their customary pursuits. Panama recently
saw
that with an 10-day strike by clerical and administrative
employees at the Social Security Fund (CSS).
International
lenders and private insurers and health care providers want to
privatize Panama’s public health care, retirement and
disability pension systems. A number of people in Mireya’s
inner circle, for example her advisor Alvaro Antadillas, who
owns a private kidney dialysis clinic, would stand to gain from
such a move. The labor movement vows a general strike if any
such thing is attempted.
Meanwhile Alvin
Weeden, the Comptroller General and most prominent of the
extended Weeden clan that holds a number of highly paid posts
in
the Moscoso administration, is carrying on a protracted feud
with CSS director Juan Jované, who has the confidence of
the nation’s labor unions. In the last issue of The Panama
News we noted how this feud played itself out on the streets of
the capital, when Weeden blocked Seguro’s attempts to buy
cyclosporin for more than a year, thus making it unavailable to
kidney patients (except, of course, through expensive private
sources). The kidney patients blocked traffic in the city for a
couple of days, causing chaos and forcing Mireya to order
Weeden
to sign the purchase order.
The Moscoso
administration’s latest ploy was to pass a CSS budget that
didn’t provide for contractually mandated pay raises, an
item with a $29.9 million pricetag. Weeden emphasized that the
CSS has increased its payroll in the past few years --- which
it
has, as the economic crisis has sent many patients who used to
pay for private care into the public system --- and, as
expected, blamed Jované. Jované and the CSS
employees proposed a $29.9 million loan from the fund to meet
the shortfall, but Weeden and the ministries of health and
economy and finance objected. The three private business
representatives and the three Moscoso administration appointees
on the CSS board boycotted a vote on the proposal, which left a
majority of those voting in favor but less than the six of 11
board votes needed to approve the credit. Enraged workers
blocked Weeden’s car as he tried to leave the meeting.
The 6,000 or so
member of the National Association of Social Security Fund
Administrative Employees (ANFACSS) walked off the job. The
strike, which began as a one-day protest to coincide with the
June 24 CSS board meeting, was extended and gained momentum
with
each day. It brought the University of Panama campus radicals
onto the streets to do battle with riot police, swelled the
ranks of a teachers’ protest march that raised similar
economic concerns as well as some peculiarly educational
issues,
and made a bus drivers’ street blockade that would
ordinarily have dominated the daily headlines in its own right
just another sideshow. The general impression to many was that
of the capital city descending into chaos.
There was
relatively little violence to match the deep anger, however. A
PTJ cop caught trying to infiltrate student rioters was beaten
to the point that he required reconstructive surgery for broken
bones in his face --- prosecutors say that criminal charges
will
be forthcoming over that --- and the riot police also beat up a
few people in the process of clearing the street barricades.
Mostly, though, it was the usual game of tear gas against
stones
in front of the university and directing traffic away from the
streets where the strikers congregated.
The Chamber of
Commerce responded with a call to fire striking workers, and
presidential candidate Ricardo Martinelli --- himself a former
CSS director, who had labor troubles on his shift --- called
for
Jované’s dismissal. Weeden accused Jované of
falsifying the Social Security Fund’s financial data ---
which would be a crime if there were any proof, but then the
unproven allegation, followed by an “investigation”
to
look into it, is Alvin Weeden’s classic modus operandi.
For their part,
the CONUSI and CONATO labor federations, the FENASEP public
employees’ federatio and the country’s teachers’
unions warned on June 26 that if the Moscoso administration
didn’t back down they’d call a nationwide general
strike.
Meanwhile,
paperwork wasn’t the only thing backlogged at the CSS. The
strike caused the postponement of about 30 percent of
operations
at the fund’s hospitals.
On June 30 the
CSS board voted by a narrow margin to scrape together a $25.9
million credit from various places, but the unions rejected
that
offer and continued the strike. The nation’s medical
unions, which represent doctors, nurses and technicians at the
CSS hospitals, also warned that the board’s offer was
unacceptable, and that raised the specter of a complete
shutdown
of the CSS health care system.
On July 1 the
student rioting reached a crescendo --- but with only a few
dozen campus radicals participating. President Moscoso
complained of a destabilization plot, which served mainly to
convince the young militants that their tactics were
working.
The public
response to the disruption may have included some sympathy for
the CSS workers, but people were mostly annoyed at all the
street blockades. Police Chief Carlos Barés vowed a hard
line toward further blockages.
Finally, on
July
3 the government, the CSS board of directors and ANFACSS agreed
to a formula by which the workers would get the pay raises due
them under their contract. Alvin Weeden said that he and the
Moscoso administration hadn’t backed down. Juan
Jované said that the important thing was that the CSS
would be able to meet its obligations.
Also in this
section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Seguro Social
strike
The Panamanian
Diaspora
City of
Knowledge
