https://themilitant.com/2019/12/07/protests-in-chile-demand-end-to-attacks-by-govt-capitalist-rulers/
Protests in Chile demand end to attacks by gov’t, capitalist rulers
By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 83/No. 46
December 16, 2019
Union contingent of Walmart workers at Oct. 23 march in Santiago, Chile,
part of nationwide general strike protesting low wages, woefully
inadequate pensions and health care.
Sonar FM radio
Union contingent of Walmart workers at Oct. 23 march in Santiago, Chile,
part of nationwide general strike protesting low wages, woefully
inadequate pensions and health care.
Pro-business pundits used to call Chile the “Latin American tiger,”
which they attributed to its rulers’ embrace of the capitalist free
market, “fiscal responsibility” and openness to imperialist penetration.
Eduardo Frei, president in much of the 1990s, even privatized the
delivery of drinking water.
But the myth of the Chilean “miracle” has been shattered by mass
protests that began Oct. 15. The economy contracted 3.4% in October,
Reuters reported Dec. 2, the biggest drop since the worldwide financial
crisis in 2008.
High school students were first to take to the streets, demanding
reversal of a 30 peso increase in subway fares. Then protests mushroomed
as workers, peasants and students aimed demands at the government — like
similar actions in Colombia and Ecuador.
Chile President Sebastián Piñera — who just days before had boasted that
the country of 18 million people was an “oasis” in a region rife with
social unrest — unleashed the hated carabineros, the national police.
The repression backfired, despite 22 dead and 2,200 injured, including
230 people who lost part or all of their eyesight after cops shot them
in the face with “rubber” bullets and tear gas canisters. Concessions by
Piñera haven’t stopped the daily protests.
Chile’s gross domestic product per capita is the highest in Latin
America. And Chile is also the Latin American country with the greatest
class disparities. The official minimum wage is about $400 a month. Some
50% of retired workers get pensions of less than $300 a month. By law,
10% of workers wages are taken from them and deposited into accounts run
by the private Retirement Fund Administrators (AFP), who put them in
stocks and bonds.
In 2008 the government instituted a so-called Solidarity Pillar pension
for those — including farmers and street vendors — who never had a
formal wage or retirement deductions. They get all of $135 a month.
Meanwhile the 140 richest capitalists — the top 0.1% — billionaire
President Piñera among them, control nearly 20% of the country’s wealth.
Chile marked by imperialist domination
Imperialist plunder of Chile’s natural resources and its cheap labor
widens the gap. According to the Wall Street Journal the two-biggest
supermarket chains control two-thirds of all retail sales. The largest
retail chain is U.S.-based Walmart, which owns more than 370 stores
across the country.
Unlike the U.S. where not a single Walmart store is unionized, the SIL
union at Walmart is the largest in the country, with 17,000 members, 60%
of them women.
The government falsely blamed protesters for the sacking of 70 Walmart
stores, including 18 arson attacks, as well as the burning of several
subway stations. Many of the arson attacks were by masked anarchists,
whose reactionary actions were both a direct blow to working people and
gave the government a pretext to step up repression.
SIL union President Juan Moreno, who denounced the arson attacks, told
the press that many Walmart workers join the protests after work. They
earn a pittance, he said, and “those who work part time earn even less —
and with that they have to pay rent, expensive medicine, school supplies
for their kids, food. They feel punished by the system that does nothing
for them.”
The largest copper company in the world is Chile’s state-owned Codelco,
an exception in the tumbling economy, with production growing 2% in
October. The Escondida mine, the largest copper mine in the world, is in
Chile, but its owners are Australia-based BHP and the U.K.-Australian
Rio Tinto.
“Mine workers are among the better-paid workers in Chile,” Mario Antonio
Guzmán told the Militant from Santiago Dec. 3. Guzmán is a journalist in
the communications department of the Copper Workers Federation (FTC),
which organizes workers at Codelco. Even with that, “most miners only
live five or ten years after they retire,” he said, due to “the
tremendous toll of working in the mines.”
The FTC supports the protests and is fighting Codelco bosses’ attempt to
fire some union activists who participated in the Oct. 23 national strike.
Far-reaching demands
The government agreed to meet Nov. 28 with the Social Unity Board, which
includes the CUT trade union federation, student groups and other
organizations that helped organize the protests. They demanded the
government grant a 50% increase in the minimum wage, replace the private
pension system, improve access to health care and convene a constituent
assembly to draw up a replacement to the constitution imposed by the
Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. So far the government hasn’t replied.
The Chilean legislature includes representatives of some 18 parties —
from the ruling National Renovation party and Christian Democrats to the
Socialist and Communist parties. For many protesters and working people
all these parties are discredited.
Gladys Zúñiga, a small vendor, told Univisión she has heard all the
speeches and all the promises the politicians make. “The result was
never what we wanted,” she said.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Copper strikers fight Asarco union busting
•All out in solidarity with striking copper workers!
•Democrats’ drive to oust Trump targets working class
•SWP drive expands reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund
•Protests in Chile demand end to attacks by gov’t, capitalist rulers
•Communist League in UK: ‘Jew-hatred is deadly threat to the working class’
•CN rail workers ‘strike for safety’ won broad backing
Feature Articles •French rulers expand military intervention into West
Africa
Also In This Issue •Australia: Women make gains in right to choose abortion
•‘The making of a union bureaucrat’
•Over 10,000 farmers in Germany protest against gov’t restrictions
•Iraq upsurge continues, prime minister to resign
•Socialist Workers Party Fund Drive Oct. 5 - Dec. 10 (Week 8)
•Fall Campaign to sell Militant subscriptions and books Oct. 5 - Dec. 10
(Week 8)
On the Picket Line •New York labor rally supports Amazon warehouse workers
•Senior residence workers in Quebec strike for higher pay
Books of the Month •‘Peoples of Cuba and the US are fraternal and
invincible’
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