Luis Felipe Rojas, Translator: Raul G.
This article was written by Luis Felipe Rojas and published in "Diario
de Cuba" on September 6th, 2011.
They receive orders and countermands. They are sent home as if they
were packages, they do not have a labor union to turn to and they cannot
say that the system does not work for them: they don't have someone to
turn to, they don't have where to turn to. The government's new
economic measures of rationalizing the work force do not even provide
enough food to bring home.
More than half a century of moderately qualified workers from the nickel
extraction plant in Nicaro, in the province of Holguin, were left
jobless during the beginning of 2011. The suggestions given by the
administration of the "Rene Ramos Latour" corporation were that these
workers re-orientate their lives, that they direct their work to other
sectors, while knowing chances of that are void, considering that the
area has been devastated by exploitation of minerals.
According to Ramon, one of the affected workers, the union did not do
anything else but to repeat what was said by the Party and the head of
the corporation. After considering him "available", another suggestion
was that he turn to self-employment or that he wait for the confirmation
of an agricultural contingent which has not yet seen the light.
Up to now, the measures implemented to encourage the growth of small
businesses or "self-employment" have met more obstacles than anything
else, despite the fact that Raul Castro himself has lashed out against
the 50 year long immobility which he and his brother have created.
The most frequent complaints, which have appeared in the very few spaces
of massive dissemination, range from poor management within the organs
of labor justice, the indigence of the unions as a basis for the
solution of worker's problems, all the way to the most vulgar form of
authoritarianism on behalf of the direction of the companies, which
completely annul any gestures by the union.
The weekly "Trabajadores" newspaper, the state-owned union's organ of
dissemination, published an interview with Canary Island union leader
Daniel Casal this past 1st of August. In the conversation, Casal, who
describes himself as a defender of workers, complains about the Iberian
system of associationism, affirming: "Once cannot be in the union they
wish to be in, and they will not truly be defended. Instead, they
impose the risk of losing one's job, and even go to the extreme of
enforcing not belonging to a union as a condition for employment".
Such an assertion seems like a taunt before the imposition of the
single-union system in Cuba, at the service of the ideological apparatus
of the Communist Party.
Protesting, walking on unstable grounds
Workers from the health, sugar production, and construction sectors are
the ones who mostly make up the "available" category, a term which the
hierarchy has invented to define the unemployed which, at no moment, can
demand anything from the totalitarian union: their only insinuation
would be categorized as being a dissident.
The government has put into legal function 74 of the 89 conventions
ratified by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Very few,
however, are upheld towards workers. Even then, the right to strike and
the right to assemble outside of the official sector are prohibited.
The strike carried out by horse-driven carriage conductors in Bayamo
during the beginning of the year, where a group of them rose as leaders,
forced the local government to sit at the negotiation table. However,
the posterior counter-measures such as the cancellation of work
licenses, coercion, and other threats left those who first protested
abandoned.
Even then, an action such as this strike and its latter conversations
emerge as anomalies amid the skein of governmental repression. In 2010,
a strike carried out by self-employed workers shook the municipality of
Palma Soriano in Santiago de Cuba. It did not leave positive
settlements for the strikers, as independent unions throughout the
country were harassed, detained, beaten, and accused of working under
orders from Washington, and even of something worse: of receiving
indications from Cuban groups in exile, mainly those situated in South
Florida.
Meanwhile, in an issue of "Trabajadores" Newspaper, Raymundo Navarro, a
functionary who attended this past June's annual ILO conference,
narrated how he debated about freedom of association and labor unions,
about worker's rights, and collective negotiation among other subjects
that have been considered insults within the history of Cuban Unions
during the past 50 years.
That is how the government attempts to paint an image of a flawless
society, while the media get's stuck in a reality it cannot narrate.
While, with the fear of losing what has already been stolen from them,
the workers whisper complaints that are nothing more than prayers.
Translated by Raul G.
6 September 2011
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