business & economy

Also in this section:
The economic uncertainties about expanding the Panama Canal
Mayday parade highlights splits in the labor movement and the left
Davis Export Processing Zone: many fewer jobs than promised
Business & Economy Briefs

The government and big business don't like to deal with his dad's organization, the militant SUNTRACS construction workers' union, whose secretary general Genaro López is Panama's best-known and most popular labor leader. Ah, but if their foes manage to destroy SUNTRACS, there might come a day when they really dislike dealing with the likes of this kid.

Mayday parade highlights divisions in organized labor and the left
photos and text by Eric Jackson

The new kids on the block: Panama's laws in several instances recognize the National Confederation of Organized Workers --- CONATO --- as the labor movement's official voice. The problem is that after selling working people out by accepting a Social Security reform that privatized the management of the retirement fund and eliminated the possibility of retirement for a large part of the Panamanian working class, CONATO threw out the the unions affiliated with the National Confederation of Industrial Union Unity (CONUSI), which includes the largest and most militant private sector unions. CONATO, though it officially encompasses the large public sector unions and several other organizations, stands largely discredited in the eyes of working people, who see it as essentially the PRD's labor front. But this will not do for President Torrijos, so he has essentially dumped CONATO in favor of the United Workers Central (CUT) for the purpose of photo opportunities with "responsible" labor leaders. Somebody has poured a lot of resources into making CUT look more consequential than it is --- on Mayday they bussed in people from points near and far, bought them lunch, and passed out red CUT t-shirts to anyone who would accept one, sometimes in multiples. The delegation marching behind the CONATO banner was minute, but the largest contingent in the Mayday parade was CUT's.

Despite being aligned with a PRD government that wants a free trade agreement with the United States, in order to appear the least bit credible in the eyes of the Panamanian working class CUT must take a position against such a treaty. This political calculation has also led the Torrijos administration to suspend free trade talks until after a Panama Canal expansion referendum, because the signing of an unpopular economic pact would lead a lot of Panamanians to cast their ballots against the government's proposal more as vote of no confidence in the president than as a decision on the merits of the proposition itself.

The Revolutionary Youth Movement (MJR, above) and the Revolutionary Student Front (FER-29, below) are bitter rivals. FER-29 is the older leftist faction, with ties to the PRD-led University of Panama administration and various perks to defend on campus, while the MJR is one of several newer radical groups that have ideological, tactical, cultural or personal differences with FER-29. But both of these factions are part of the FRENADESO umbrella group and they marched the same route with CONUSI and its largest union SUNTRACS. The radicals went up Avenida Peru from Parque Porras, then around the hairpin turn onto Via España in front of the Euro Hotel, rather than with the CUT contingent, which marched perpendicularly from the radicals' route, going from Parque Porras to turn onto Via España in front of the Don Bosco Basilica.

Another smaller group of leftist factions, centered around the Unified Popular Movement (MPU) and its student group the Popular University Bloc (PBU), marched between the CUT/CONATO contingent and the folks who went up Avenida Peru. One surprise here was the size of the Partido del Pueblo (old Moscow-line communist party) delegation, which presented no threat of coming to power anytime soon but was larger than has been seen at any time since the 1989 US invasion. The MPU and its leader, university professor Olmedo Beluche, have formed the Alternative Political Force, an alliance of 10 groups who are calling for the establishment of a leftist political party to contest the 2009 elections. The coalition, in addition to the MPU and Partido del Pueblo, includes the Bolivarian Clubs, several indigenous organizations and the folks who publish the Camino Alternativo online magazine. The leaders of FRENADESO and SUNTRACS are skeptical about the new party idea, but the people who run some of the public sector unions are also talking about the need for a new party. So far, however, these labor leaders --- the most prominent among them Priscilla Delgado, who heads the union that represents most of the Social Security Fund's non-medical personnel --- and the Alternative Political Force have not combined their efforts.

The Catholic left, whose most notable expression in this country is to be found in the CARITAS social ministry, also marched between the CUT-led and CONUSI-led contingents.

There were also farmers marching in the parade, along with the FRENADESO/CONUSI contingent. Small farmers, who fear being driven out of business and off of their land like many of their Mexican counterparts were in the wake of NAFTA, are increasingly gravitating to the left over the issue of free trade with the United States. Others, like this woman, are offering ever more militant resistance to dam projects that threaten to either flood their farms or deprive them of the water they need for their animals to drink or to irrigate their crops. Still other farmer groups marching with the radicals were protesting against proposed mining projects, which they say will use methods that will dump mercury or cyanide into adjacent rivers.

Another contingent that marched on the Avenida Peru route was composed of 52 families who are squatting on land in the Malengue area of Panama City's Pacora corregimiento. Their spokesman, Miguel Jiménez, said that former Guatemalan President Elias Serrano, who fled here in the 90s after a failed Fujimori-style coup and who is wanted by authorities from whence he came on various corruption charges, claims that the land is his. "He's gone there to kick us out," Jiménez said, "but he hasn't shown us a title to the property." The squatters allow the possibility that Serrano has laundered money stolen from Guatemala and owns the land through a front person or entity, but in any case they say that they are poor and need a place to live and demand that the government give them land on which to build homes in the event that they are forced to leave.