Telecommunication Service in Latin America

In much of Latin America - as in most of the developing world - telephone service is unreliable at best, characterized by low-quality connections and long waiting lists for service. It is generally accepted that a modern telecommunications infrastructure is necessary for the economic development of a nation. At the same time, basic telephone service is now recognized by the UN as a necessary service that should be available to everyone.

Many governments in the developing world (with advice from the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development) are implementing plans for privatization of their telephone companies. It is hoped that privatization will attract foreign capital and introduce competition, thereby improving service. Some of the issues usually ignored is these plans are universal access and worker rights (both taken for granted in the United States) as well as the threat of an unregulated monopoly (always an issue where independent regulatory agencies do not exist).

Wilmer Erroa Argueta is secretary of national and international relations for ASTTEL, the union of telephone workers in El Salvador. The government of El Salvador would like to sell the national telephone company to a multi-national telecommunications corporation. ASTTEL is opposed to this, and has proposed a detailed alternative plan for modernizing El Salvador's telecommunications sector.

On Thursday November 21, 1996, Wilmer spoke at MIT at an event sponsored by TecsChange, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Telecomm Policy Roundtable - Northeast, the MIT Thistle, and others. He gave a history of privatization in El Salvador (including privatization of the banks in 1990), explaind the current state of telecommunications service, and described ASTTEL's alternative plan for modernizing the telecommunications sector.

Prompted by this successful event, TecsChange has started collecting information on the state of telecommunictions around the world, with an emphasis on privatization plans and the plight of workers. The following is a list of articles on this issue.

• Puerto Rico: Over 100,000 march against privatization on October 1, 1997. (from Puerto Rico News, which describes itself as "An occasional electronic newsletter devoted to opinion and commentary on current Puerto Rican affairs.")
• Peru: Telecommunications workers protest at telephone company's new employment strategy. From ICFTU Online, a publication of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
• LaborTECH 97, the premier international gathering of labor technologists, coming together to show, share and organize with the cutting edge tools of the 90's: Internet, radio, cable, TV, and print. Sat/Sun, July 12-13, 1997, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
• Proceedings from the second continental telecommunication workers' conference, held in Tijuana, Mexico in October 1996.
• A recent (May 1997) statement on universal access to basic communication and information services from the UN' s Administrative Coordinating Committee - ACC.
• Editorial - All-out competition or new social contract? by Sid Shniad, Research Director, Telecommunications Workers Union of Canada.

• El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala began an international search of buyers for their telephone companies, adding to an oversupplied market where 25 state-owned companies are for sale, with only 10 prospect buyers on sight. IPS story, July 3, 1998. Click here for the full story.
• Death threat against union leader. Please read and respond! Click here for the action alert.
  
• Please fill out the following on-line petition in support of fired telecomm workers in El Salvador.
  
• Newly-sworn-in legislature overturns privatization law. "Theft of the Century" Held Up.(Alas, it was only temporary.)
  
• Editorial on the Privatization Process Proceso, a publication of the (Jesuit) University of Central America, San Salvador, El Salvador.
  
• Memo from US AID official to El Salvador's Presidential Commissioner for Privatization, dated September 2, 1996.
  
• Notes from a meeting between El Salvador solidarity activists and US AID officials held in Washington, DC on October 11, 1996.
  
• El Salvador's telephone company, ANTEL, is already announcing closings of rural offices and suspension of telephone and telegraph services, all in the name of "profitability."
  
• The new telecommunications law passed by the National Assembly in September 1996 completely ignored the requests and interests of communities and community radio stations.
• According to industry leaders, the privatisation scramble among Central American countries looking for foreign buyers of state-run telecommunications systems could prove harmful for the sellers. Click here for full story.

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