An Absurd Unionization

An Absurd Unionization / Fernando Damaso
Posted on November 22, 2015

Fernando Damaso, 21 November 2015 — The official media is continually
promoting the need for self-employed workers to affiliate themselves
with the unions of the Cuban Workers Center (CTC). No matter how much
they repeat the calls for it, achieving it seems to be a difficult task.

The principal reason could be that the CTC forms a part of the
government organizations, which make up the fabric of unconditional
support for the Party, which directs and controls them, even naming
their leaders in various instances.

In reality, the CTC doesn't really represent Cuban workers, most of them
working for the state, and much less can it claim to represent the
self-employed as well. The CTC, for more than half a century, has
defended first and foremost the interests of the Party and of the
Government, and the problems of the workers only when they do not
contradict those of the former.

To exercise its true role, the CTC must first democratize and make sure
that its leaders, in every instance, ride from the ranks of the workers
they are supposed to represent, and be nominated and directly elected by
them, without the intervention of the Party and the Government.

To date, the majority come from the ranks of Party bureaucrats, without
any direct ties to unionism, nor even with the current government in the
country. As long as this doesn't change, the CTC, lost its activism from
the era of the Republic, and will only be one more government
organization of control, in this case of the workers.

Self-employed workers should not allow themselves to be confused by the
siren's song, as it has confused workers for the stat. As long as there
are no truly independent unions, their rights will not be defended.

Source: An Absurd Unionization / Fernando Damaso | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/an-absurd-unionization-fernando-damaso/