Some 5,000 protesters shut down the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes on April 3 in a dramatic demonstration against President Rene Preval's government for failing to slow the rising cost of food and other staple products; they also protested the local administration's failure to maintain roads. From early in the morning people barricaded streets with burning tires, forcing stores, banks and schools to close down in the city, the country's third largest. While many people demonstrated peacefully, others looted food and containers of cement from trucks and warehouses. Some protesters raided the offices of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in the Breset neighborhood, carrying away computers and other office equipment. Two MINUSTAH vehicles were set on fire.

At a massive assembly in the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan on March 5, some 10,000 members of the Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR) almost unanimously backed the union leadership's recommendation to suspend a strike that started on Feb. 21 over wages, classroom size and health issues. FMPR president Rafael Feliciano recommended that the union start a process of reflection and analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of the strike, although without acceding to Law 45's ban on strikes by public employees. The assembly also strongly rejected the reported interference of the US-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its vice president, Dennis Rivera, in the situation.

As of Feb. 29 the 41,000-member Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR) was maintaining an open-ended strike at public schools that started on Feb. 21 over wages, classroom size and health issues. Meanwhile, controversy continued over the role of Change to Win, a US labor federation reportedly jockeying to replace the FMPR as the teachers' representation. New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez noted that Dennis Rivera—vice president of the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a major component of Change to Win—seems to be deeply involved in the effort. Calling Rivera "the most influential Puerto Rican labor leader in the US," Gonzalez said members of independent unions in Puerto Rico "never expected" to see Rivera "treat them just like those old Washington labor leaders have done for so long."

After 27 months of negotiations and despite official efforts to decertify their union, tens of thousands of Puerto Rican public school teachers went on strike on Feb. 21. Public employees are barred from striking under Puerto Rican law, and the government of Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila announced that it would keep schools open. Striking teachers blocked school doors and in some cases chained them shut. Police agents beat a teacher with clubs at the entrance to the Gabriela Mistral school in San Juan on Feb. 21 and threw her to the ground. At least 12 teachers were arrested across the island on the first day.

On Feb. 7 the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Puerto Rican independence activist Avelino Gonzalez Claudio, a suspected leader of the rebel Popular Boricua Army (EPB)-Macheteros. According to Luis Fraticelli, who heads the FBI in Puerto Rico, the arrest was carried out without incidents in the northern town of Manati. "We don't know what condition our companero is in at this point," Alvin Couto, an attorney and spokesperson for the Socialist Front of Puerto Rico, said on Feb. 10.

Tens of thousands of public school teachers in the Teachers' Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), the country's largest union, are set to go on strike sometime after Feb. 1 in defiance of the Puerto Rican government and parts of the labor movement. Teachers have set up strike committees in schools, and some say participation is higher than during a strike in 1993. In Ponce some 600 FMPR members blocked streets in a recent pro-strike demonstration, while more 500 teachers picketed in front of school board offices in Caguas.

Several Haitian nongovernmental organizations--including the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA), Haitian Women's Solidarity (SOFA), Tet Kole Ti Peyizan ("Union of Small Farmers") and the National Coordinating Committee for Women's Rights (CONAP)—have written the Haitian government demanding an investigation of reports of sexual against Haitian women and minors by soldiers in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

At least 10 people were injured and 55 arrested during an 24-hour general strike Oct. 2 in the Dominican Republic called by the Alternative Social Forum (FSA), a coalition of grassroots organizations. The groups were demanding higher wages for civil service workers, police and the military; a reduction in the prices of food and medicines; a halt to evictions; and changes in the Hydrocarbon Laws.