8:00 am Breakfast
9:30 Casa Sindical FSS
We are Frontal Sector Salvadorenos. We are 200 organizations and we are organizing, private, public communities, on the national level maquilas textiles. We work on a legal level Con Fuerza there are 3 areas 1. Private workers 2.Public sector and 3.Mayor offices, municipalities. As a Social union front, we support the workers and defend them in public and private areas. We support in collective contracts for their employment and benefits they deserve. Since 2009 FMLN took power, it has been much easier, we have more organizations. Before it wasn’t possible and couldn’t go out on strikes. In the communities we have supported them in projects in short medium and long terms for instance, San Martin, in the community Rutilo Grando, we are helping with the construction of a school and a clinic. Same with Santa Fe Guarumal, Lourdes en La libertad and Guachapan. In the case of 10 de Mayo a municipally in Guachapa, we have stopped four times because the citizens are being evacuated from their land. The evacuation is ordered by a judge and the owner from those lands owner of Diario el Mundo. In all these communities, they lacked water and electricity. 10 de Mayo, and ANDA helped install these public needs as it was an approved water project. When the judge calls upon forces to arrive at these communities to evacuate, police and ministers of security do not arrive. No one comes to have them removed. The UN states that no one can be removed if they are not guaranteed a place to move. On March 21st the judge ordered to evacuate 10 de Mayo we asked organizations, union members to be there for the 21st which we have been there before like in October and we prevented from being removed. Additionally, we tried to get the Catholic and Evangelical Church and until this date, they have not moved. We have asked the Cardenal to intervene, and he stated that he can’t because of the hierarchy therefore the church cannot act on anything. We ask you for solidarity. Hueartel is a social worker who is working on behalf of Diario Mundo. He is pushing to evacuate and displace these people but also, he is asking to negotiate lands these lands. What we hear is that they plan on making it a mall to make it an urban area. The mayor in this area is not helping. They are working with Maras to remove the FMLN propaganda from the walls.
The U.S. embassy doesn’t want this information to be known that this country is on the verge of ending. It is claiming that if the FMLN wins we are going to lose communication and relationship with the U.S. and Trump might even invade here. Remittances will be lost and Salvadoran citizens will return from the U.S.
Recently, the Maquila workers are being forced to go outside with banners to support Arenas or they will lose their job s because the companies will go elsewhere.
Some of the candidates like Siman, has historically financed death squads. He wanted to give 11 cents for the minimum wage. There is a call on the Supreme Court threatening us that they are going to invalidate us as an organization.
Institutions Ipartitas, Tri-partisan when the right governed, they defended the employer, they never looked for the workers interests. These Ipartitas are the regulatory council of minimum wage salary, a labor training instutue, AFP manages pension funds Insafor social security. Because of the FLMN is in power, we were able to infiltrate those ipartita. 2 years ago we had an achievement, we were able to increase minimum wage. Previously workers in Maquilas would earn $250 a month and we were able to raise that to $292 dollars when they work 32 hours 2 times a week, 64 hours a week. The other workers we increased it for 300 it’s minimal, is not much but it’s an advance. Another fight is the pension system pension. It was privatized in 1996. Teachers will get 243 a month once they retire when they used to get 1000 dollars a month. We created proposal for reforms but deputies from the Right never read it and the Left has very small amount of deputies.
I am a teacher I have 26 years teaching and worked in rural areas. My students were with no shoes and walked 3 kilometers to school. They would remove their shoes and hang them from their necks with the shoelaces so that they would not to ruin them and would often play soccer barefoot. It is difficult to learn when hungry. From there I came to the city and saw that they were falling asleep because they were hungry. Also, in the camp the girls at the age of 10 would exit school because they would have to make tortillas and cook for the working men. 2009 FMLN enters, and we started to see kids being covered with basic needs like nutrition. We now have different packages. 2010 enters the first package two pairs of shoes, notebooks, pens, pencils and two uniforms. 485,000,000 of funds are needed to cover these packages towards small business instead of maquila factories. We don’t buy this from the maquilas we get them from the small community businesses. The other program is one laptop one child. There is 719,9822 children, and 43,223 laptop. Laptops are made here in El Salvador, almost 2000 schools and there is 5000 total in the country. Since 2009 there is a food program, two covers breakfast and lunch and so far, it has reduced 42% of malnutrition. Additionally, we want to reduce illiteracy rate which is 330,000in El Salvador and from this, 222,239 are women. To this point 92 municipalities are free from illiteracy.
12:00 Lunch
1:30-3:00 pm Supreme Court Judicial Overreach Salomon Padilla
Salomon Padilla Lawyer and former Magistrate of the Supreme Court
“Good morning welcome to El Salvador! I want you to feel at home and thank you for the opportunity to explain the actual situation of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. My name is Jose Salomon Padilla. I was president of the Judicial branch for 14 months. Working therefor that time, I was able to learn a lot of their function. El Salvador counts with 2 models of constitution. Since 1991 the chamber supreme is made of 5 magistrates that are elected by the legislative assembly. 15 members need to be renovated by 5 every 3 years. In 2009 there was elected 4 of 5. 4 went to the constitutional chamber. It’s been these four members in 2009 and they have deformed the constitutional justice in this country. I will talk about the justice of this country. The judicial insecurity is violating the civil, political, and human rights as well as taking other functions that other organizations of the state should have. In El Salvador the tribunal that needs to defend the constitution and we see that instead it violates the constitution. Famous philosophers German Philosophers Nietzsche and Kant said you have killed morality by using morality. In El Salvador they use supremacy not in the terms as in the U.S. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison said they had to hold onto that norm, but here, they are using the constitution on their own and not using what is in the constitution. In the traditional theory, in powers what Madison and Hamilton is what made us go forth. We will talk about insecurity, superpower. 4 judges that it has they don’t work, they act with superpower. They are unjust. In 2012 on article 32 it says that they cannot be judged they signed it with the date of 2012 and their signature is on the constitution. There was a lawsuit on them for their doings because it’s unconstitutional. When they took office in the elections of magistrates in 2009, two were not elected in the rightful order for them to be elected, every 3 years the assembly will choose 30 names of possibilities, 15 come from the national judicial board, and another 15 from lawyers association then they add and make a general list and is sent into the assembly. Two of them Rodolfo Gonzalez and Belarmino Jaime were included in the list 2 days prior to the election. Since 2009 in many cases, they made laws of constitutional proceedings that does not allow you to suspend the law that is being challenged. In normal cases there is a legal term called an amparo and not an appeal. There is a process of reforms normally but the chamber now says let’s make this or this is now going to say this. This is called Constitutional Mutation. The chamber makes sentences by violating human rights by usurping other organizations functions of the assembly. They inquire other parts of the state to violate the constitution. For example, article 676 of 2017 violates the rights for the process of amparo an injunction that is separate from a sentence or a ruling.
One of the leadrs of the FMLN is running for deputy there is a case against him. They haven’t said you cannot run. The lawsuit against Jose Luis Medinoleder of FMLN candidate is read unconstitutional because of article 127 of the which says that you cannot be candidate to the legislative if the president, vice president, ministers of state, members in the military and judges. They are basing their case on the first part of the article but at the end it says: This people cannot be candidates if they had been in that position only 3 months before the election. The chamber has made decisions that have placed the country in crisis. In 2015 there was a lawsuit for a decree that authorized 9000,000 dollars was sold and was read unconstitutional. A case was brought for this. But they said: We have our own reasons that it is constitutional since these bonds were passed by sub deputies from 2012 and 2015. They removed 84 deputies they do it in an arbitrary way.
In my case my election for the Supreme Court was declared unconstitutional because I had links to a political party. In the constitution there is nothing saying that judges in general cannot have links to a party. On the contrary, it says to be exercising the political rights and article 72 of the constitution it advices you to associate and to be on political parties. I ask if there is going to be prohibition to do it as it is in the constitution in the correct manner and not to do it for arbitrary interpretation reasons. It does say you cannot be a representative, do propaganda for the political party. Not only does it say that but that you cannot have material links from a political party. Since 2009 until now, since the election of these four magistrates without doubt one national has been established. If the problem were just the four, the problem would be almost gone because they are leaving in July. The problem is about the new coming that can be the same or worse. In the case of Ulises Rivas, they have not resolved he is a suspended magistrate because of the links to FMLN.
The chamber has been turned into a Superpower where it has decision of life or death. When a lawyer is told that she is unconstitutional because she is a leftist. Do you think that in the private sector she will be employed? That’s why many lawyers they don’t want to participate perhaps they do because the chamber did not define it. The judge for the chamber is the one who looks after the rights of the citizens making sure they are not violated and it is the same chamber that is violating human rights.”
Salomón Padilla and one of our delegates
5:00 pm Maternal Waiting House
Dr. Ernesto Flores Director of Maternal Waiting House Unidad de Salud Planes de Renderos
“This is a maternal leading house. It is a house where pregnant women come near their due date. The objective is to diminish births outside hospitals. We guarantee patients a healthier delivery and decrease infant mortality. We offer examinations, transportation to the hospital and stay all free of charge. This started in Morazan in 2007 and now there is 21 in the country, this one being the first in San Salvador. In their stay expectant mothers are offered nutrition, reproductive education and workshops for taking care of newborns. Expectant mothers do their own cleaning and cooking. They share bedrooms and have visitations from 9-5. So far in Latin America the lowest infant mortality is in Cuba at 4% next to El Salvador at 5%. Women live far away from hospitals and they rather save the $30 dollars charge for the delivery plus the health quota that was forced. These clinics are tools to reduce their deaths. It’s been reduced from 27-30% to 12%”
Considering that in El Salvador abortion is illegal and women who abort are given 30 years in prison whereas a murderer is given 7 years. And considering that the U.S. has legal abortion, we still see that expectant mothers purposely abort on the third trimester. Have you seen women using any of these facilities as gateways for abortion by claiming that they were getting the proper care and that perhaps it was a stillborn using it as defense given proper care?
“I cannot comment or give my opinion on that”
7:00 pm dinner
Bay Area Movement 