It was the oversight board’s new fiscal plan for Puerto Rico that set the stage for the violent clashes. In mid-April, the board approved the regime, which is supposed to help the island get out from under billions of dollars in debt; satisfy municipal creditors; stabilize the power infrastructure; and handle the ongoing recovery from Hurricane Maria, which made landfall last September.

That plan contains a number of provisions that have proven highly controversial among Puerto Ricans. On the labor side, the board’s plan takes steps to reduce employer costs; decrease work in “informal” markets, like street vending; and push workers into formal work arrangements—namely, tourism. It would immediately slash territory-mandated employee benefits, including sick leave and vacation pay; and it would cancel the mandatory Christmas bonus that firms currently have to pay most employees. To offset some of the losses to employee pay and benefits—the Christmas bonus alone is required to be somewhere between 2 percent and 6 percent of annual wages—the plan would increase the minimum wage for workers over age 25 by 25 cents per hour, a bump that could be ratcheted up if enough Puerto Ricans enter the formal workforce. It would also implement an earned-income tax credit.

Additionally, the new scheme would create a work requirement for Puerto Rico’s food-assistance program for people in or near poverty. It also targets a major driver of Puerto Rico’s current debt crisis: nearly $50 billion in unfunded pension obligations to public employees. The plan would save over $700 million over six years through a combination of freezes and reductions to those pensions.

Beyond the labor-law changes, the regime makes a number of alterations to the structure of Puerto Rico’s governance and economy. Currently, the island is managing the ongoing process of a structured bankruptcy and the privatization of Prepa, the island’s publicly owned (and deeply indebted) power company. Relatedly, the board wants to expand renewable energy sources and cut government funding to the University of Puerto Rico and individual municipalities by at least $451 million a year. It says the reductions can be offset by raising tuition at UPR, cost-cutting across the board, and more efficient local tax collection.

In all, these developments amount to a deep austerity program for one of the poorest places in America. Almost 200 schools across the territory have closed since last year, with an additional 280 planned to close this summer. The University of Puerto Rico agreed to a tuition hike that will more than double the average cost per credit per student. Many teachers, students, and university professors expect to leave their respective institutions over the next few months, as the fiscal plan slashes retirement benefits for teachers and professors, and cuts the safety net for young adults without increasing pay.