NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8433

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Subject: cuba labor
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Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

 from Workers World:

            CUBA THEN AND NOW, THROUGH A SAILOR'S EYES


To the Editor:

The October issue of the publication Labor Notes printed a letter
by a Samuel Farber that attacked the legitimacy of trade unions in
Cuba. Farber claimed they do not represent Cuban workers but
instead are "organs of the one-party state." As a longtime trade
union activist who participated in the second U.S./Cuba Labor
Exchange delegation to Cuba this past spring, I would like to
respond.

I'm not an expert on Cuba or on its trade unions, but this wasn't
my first trip to Cuba. I visited it some 30-40 times in the 1950s
as a young seaman in the U.S. merchant marine. At that time, Havana
was known as the "playground of the Caribbean," and with good
reason. All the clubs and big restaurants were run by organized
crime from the U.S. The cops were vicious, even to U.S. sailors.
About the only job a Cuban woman could get was as a domestic
servant or a prostitute. Racial segregation was as bad as anything
in the deep South, and so many kids were trying to survive by
begging that their own parents used to deform them so they'd get a
few more coins from the tourists. I saw all this with my own eyes.

This spring, I went back to Havana, as part of a delegation of 23
U.S. trade unionists, some of us rank-and-file members, some union
officers or staff members. We participated in a labor seminar
sponsored by the Cuban Confederation of Workers (CTC), the
federation of 14 unions that together represent 96 percent of the
workers in Cuba. In an organized way and also on our own, we were
able to visit workplaces and neighborhoods and meet with union
leaders from across the island, including with Pedro Ross,
president of the CTC.

There's been a lot in the papers lately about what a hard time Cuba
is going through, a result of the continuing 32-year blockade of
the island by Washington, now being tightened even further by the
Torricelli bill, plus the collapse of trading agreements with the
former Soviet Union and eastern European countries. And Cuba is
going through a very difficult time. But in my seven days in
Havana, whether on the official tours or out on my own, I didn't
see a single person living on the street. Not one homeless person.
Not one beggar. And not one single child asking me for a coin or a
piece of food. Now, maybe some people would say that the police can
run off street people and beggars, but all the cops in the world
can't tell a hungry kid not to ask you for something to eat.

So I had to ask myself, what made the difference? Here's a society
that's obviously poor, but the kids are healthy, everybody's got a
place to live, segregation's gone, women are respected--what was
the Cuban Revolution all about?

When I used to visit Cuba, the tourist industry was run by the mob.
Forty percent of the sugar industry was owned by U.S. businessmen,
as was 90 percent of the utilities and most of the ranching and
minding. A few Cubans were very wealthy and the rest were mostly
dirt poor, especially the Black Cubans.

Today in Cuba, there are no private companies, no stockholders. All
the industries, the farms and mines, the utilities, hospitals,
schools and so on are owned by the government and they're run to
meet the needs of the people. Wages are set on the national level,
by the government in consultation with the leadership of the CTC
and are based on what is available. Pensions are set the same way.
Health and safety laws are also national--they're not left up to
each individual workplace to decide. "Negotiations" take place
within the context of trying to raise the level of society as a
whole, not just one individual group of workers. People go up or
down together. You can see that yourself on the streets. There are
no huge differences in how much people have. Professionals and
managers make more than blue-collar workers, but not much more.

Here healthcare is a big fight for the unions. In Cuba, health care
is universal and free for all--and includes the unrestricted right
to abortion. Education is free, from kindergarten through college.
There are no private landlords, and by law, your rent can't be more
than 10 percent of your income. After ten years the government
gives you the title to your house or apartment and you don't have
to pay rent anymore.

So what's the role of the unions? Basically, it's to look out for
the interests of the workers in the various enterprises. If a
manager of a factory, for example, isn't enforcing health and
safety regulations, if he or she is guilty of corruption or
nepotism, or in the view of the union is pushing unreasonably hard
for production, the union and management meet and talk it out. If
they can't come to a resolution, a government mediator is brought
in. If the union still isn't satisfied, it can push to have the
manager removed. And that does happen. But at the same time, the
union--and the individual workers--also have a stake in production,
because that's what ultimately determines the level of their wages
and pensions as well as the improvement and expansion of health
care, education, housing, etc. So in this context, strikes--which,
by the way, are not forbidden by the Cuban constitution--don't make
a lot of sense.

This is a different role for a union than the one we're used to
here in the U.S. If a union leader were to tell us we had a stake
in company productivity, we'd call him or her a stooge. But we live
in a capitalist society, where productivity means more profits for
the boss, and very often layoffs for the workers. In Cuba, there
are no profits and productivity means advancement for everyone in
society. That may sound like rhetoric, but it's a real difference.
It's why the kids in Cuba are healthy and the old people aren't
eating out of garbage cans. It's why I couldn't get over how much
things had changed in Havana from the last time I was there.

The CTC has played a major role in this change. The federation has
been around since the 1920s and for many decades fought a bitter
struggle against the government. Then in the mid-fifties the
Batista dictatorship--with the help of the anti-communist crusaders
running the AFL-CIO--physically removed much of the CTC leadership
and replaced it with pro-Batista hacks. That's the real history.
And that's the reason for the "purge of the freely elected union
leadership" Mr. Farber mentions that took place right after the
Revolution. Maybe Mr. Farber liked the CTC better when it was just
an arm of the Batista regime, back in the good old days when Cuba
was "free." But I remember those days and if there was a strong and
free union movement in Cuba back then, well, it wasn't on the docks
or on the ships or in the streets where I was.

We could give Cuban workers a big hand by telling Washington to
lift the damned blockade and stay the hell out of Cuba. And we
could respect their right to build their own society, with their
own values and principles--and their own unions.

By the way, trade unionists who are interested in traveling to Cuba
and seeing that society for themselves can contact the U.S./Cuba
Labor Exchange, P.O. Box 39188, Redford, Mich. 48239, phone/fax:
[phone].

Sincerely,

Henri Nereaux
Vice President
Masters, Mates & Pilots (Ret.)


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