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[Translation of an editorial from the Salvadoran website Raices.com for May 3.]

The principal feature of the May Day celebrations on the streets of San Salvador was that the people, especially those in the governing party, the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), were asking President Mauricio Funes for changes. To the degree that they reminded him that it was they who had put him in office and they could remove him.

The burning of an effigy with the president’s face and Uncle Sam’s hat was perhaps the demonstrators’ most stunning blow, although to listen to the leaders, among them José Luis Merino and Vice President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, things were more cordial than that, in that more confidence was shown than dissatisfaction. They even said change requires the participation of the people. (more…)

Calderón government one of the three worst in history, electrical workers say

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for May 2.]

by Patricia Muñoz and Georgina Saldierna

During the International Workers’ Day march on May 1, 2010, independent unions of the country characterized the Felipe Calderón government as one of the “three worst” in the history of the country, equal to those of Antonio López de Santa Anna and Victoriano Huerta; declared their unanimous rejection of PAN [Partido de Acción Nacional – National Action Party] labor reforms; condemned the massive impoverishment of Mexican workers; and voted by show of hands for the “immediate departure” of Secretary of Labor Javier Lozano Alarcón.

The mobilization featured the presence in the Zócalo of the 72 members of the Sindicato Mexicano de Electicistas (SME – Mexican Electrical Workers Union) who are on hunger strike; the unanimous repudiation of the administration’s labor policies, declared by dozens of labor organizations on picket signs, posters and t-shirts; and the absence of members of what is usually one of the most militant contingents in this kind of observation, that of Social Security workers. (more…)

Confrontations leave 15 injured in Colombia, 66 arrested in Chile

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for May 2 with material from Agence France Presse and Deutsche Presse Agentur.]

Thousands of workers in different Latin American countries marked workers’ day on May 1, with massive demonstrations in Venezuela and marches in Colombia that left 15 injured and, in Chile, at least 66 arrested.

With an eye toward the May 30 presidential elections, Colombian unions

marching in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Pereira, Neiva and Popayán pressed candidates for the creation of “more and better jobs and for curbing violence against union activists and society.”

Amid demands on the leaders in election polls, independent Antanas Mockus and governing-party candidate Juan Manuel Santos, a number of disturbances and explosions of homemade bombs were reported on Saturday in Bogotá and Bucaramanga.

Fifteen were injured, including five reporters. Also affected were presidential candidates Rafael Pardo of the opposition Partido Liberal and leftist Gustavo Petro, who were forced to leave a plaza in central Bogotá because of teargas launched by police when incidents broke out after a march. (more…)