Striking for public power: Workers, energy and the nationalization of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, 1933–1941

Abstract

This article examines the role of working people in the energy transition that played out in Puerto Rico in the 1930s and 1940s – from a private, fossil fuel-based regime to a public, hydroelectric system. It argues that by withholding their labor, organizing boycotts, and sabotaging energy infrastructure, working people disrupted the energy systems that powered Puerto Rico and helped to initiate a nearly-decade-long transition to public hydropower. For the present-day Puerto Ricans fighting the privatization of energy in the streets and on the picket lines, this history should be both affirming and instructive. It reminds us that public power took shape in those same spaces. For others across the globe who see an energy transition as essential to a more humane and equitable future, this history suggests that energy systems can be made and unmade through class struggle.