LEFTISTS GAIN IN CHILEAN UNION
Santiago, Chile
In the middle of November, the Trabajadores de la Salud [Health Workers], which has a membership of about 38,000, held their third national congress. The rank-and-file delegates proposed a general strike but the bureaucratic leadership, which is dominated by the Communist party, did everything possible to block it.
The culmination of the bureaucratic maneuvers came when the CP barred the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria] and the PSR [Partido Socialista Revolucionaria] from presenting a joint slate of candidates for the National Board. The MIR and PSR ran a complete slate of 15 out of which they would probably have won 2, since the slate was backed by 45 delegates.
Confronted with this bureaucratic move and not wanting to seem to go along with a fraudulent election, the MIR and the PSR left the congress. They were backed by 80 delegates who also left as a demonstration of disapproval of the bureaucratic violation of union democracy. At the close of the congress, the Communist party had 105 votes, the Socialist party 102 and the Radical party 34. This shows the relative strength of the MIR and PSR which ended up with 80 delegates.
The delegates who left the congress stated that they are not leaving the federation. They will continue to stay, struggling for unity, but will organize a revolutionary tendency.
This new revolutionary current has sponsored two union newspapers, Adelante [Forward] and La Jeringa [The Syringe], which have been well received by the rank and file of the Trabajadores de la Salud, which is one of the most militant unions in Chile.
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