With rising temperatures and the increasing threat of tropical storms due to climate change menacing Puerto Rico, many fear the islands’ access to electrical power will only worsen under privatization.

Like many firsts of May in the past, this year’s May Day will see workers and activists around the world take to the streets to demand greater labor rights and protections. In Puerto Rico, they will also be condemning displacement and environmental destruction.

Debt restructuring efforts for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s $9 billion debt have come to a new standstill after almost six years of negotiation. Multiple failed attempts to exit bankruptcy have led nowhere.

Three days before LUMA Energy’s contract is set to expire, the Public-Private Partnerships Authority requested authorization to extend LUMA’s provisional contract until the debt restructuring process for the publicly owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is finalized.

Teachers and electrical workers in Puerto Rico are calling for protests outside schools on November 30, the day that LUMA Energy’s contract is set to expire, in hopes that the government cancels the company’s impending 15-year contract.

Puerto Rican legislators from New York and local activist groups joined forces on Thursday to repudiate the Puerto Rican government’s contract with LUMA Energy and ask Gov. Pedro Pierluisi not to grant the company control over the archipelago’s electrical system for the next 15 years.

As Hurricane Fiona bore down on Puerto Rico two weeks ago, the U.S.-imposed fiscal control board and the U.S.-based judge who handles the public electric utility’s debt restructuring deal forced Puerto Rican lawyers to file motions even as the archipelago was experiencing an island-wide blackout.

Outraged over constant blackouts and increases in the price of electricity, over 4,000 protesters marched in San Juan, Puerto Rico, calling for an end to the contract the local government signed with LUMA Energy that privatized part of the island’s electrical grid.

Don Quixote’s elusive quest is a fitting metaphor for Puerto Rico’s statehood movement.

Many in the meeting emphasized the importance of looking at the debt as a political mechanism.

The daughter of a union member and a manager recalls the struggle for workers’ rights in Puerto Rico