Cuba Labor Conference hears call for solidarity with immigrant workers

The Cuba/Venezuela/Mexico/North America Labor Conference convened Dec. 8 in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, where international representatives, activist union leaders, immigrant-rights youth activists, people working in solidarity with revolutionary Cuba and Venezuela and others involved in struggles against racism, imperialism and war all gathered for two days of fruitful discussion and information exchange.

From left, Ike Nahem, Cheryl LaBash, María Rodríguez Pedroso, Raymundo Navarro Fernández and Judge Claudia Morcom are first panel in Tijuana, Mexico, Dec. 9. WW photo: Bob McCubbin

Action proposals included the May 1, 2007, immigrant rights mobilizations, a spring “Hands off Cuba and Venezuela/Free the Cuban Five” demonstration in Washington, D.C. or New York City, and the Sixth Anti-FTAA/FTA International Conference in Havana at the end of April 2007.

Other highlights of the conference included presentations on the achievements of and current challenges facing Cuban workers, on the struggle to free the Cuban Five, on the situation of Mexican workers, and on the efforts to defend the Colombian SINALTRAINAL union.

Ignacio Meneses from the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange, the initiating organization of the conference, said, “This gathering helped us to understand clearly the connection between the devastation from NAFTA and ‘Free Trade’ agreements on the economy of Latin America and the millions of unemployed who have no other alternative but to immigrate to the U.S., where they face super exploitation and discrimination as workers.”

May Day action for immigrant rights

Immigrant rights organizers at the conference introduced a call for a national conference in Los Angeles on Feb. 3 and 4 and a May Day action, which is being called the Great American Boycott II, continuing to reclaim that working class holiday in the country where it originated. The Union of Mexican Electrical Workers (SME) and U.S.-based organizations endorsed and supported a May Day 2007 boycott in defense of immigrants.

Larry Holmes, representing the Million Worker March and the Troops Out Now Coalition, motivated this proposal during the discussion period. He noted that in the face of the ruling class’s efforts to bury May Day as a holiday of workers struggle, the incredible outpourings of millions of workers in U.S. cities last spring were astounding.

“We cannot allow the immigrant workers to remain isolated,” he insisted. “We must build Black-Brown unity to answer the racist attempts to divide us. And white workers and the general progressive movement must join the struggle too. We must not ignore this opportunity to unite with immigrant workers. Inaction now would be unconscionable and dangerous.”

Cubans promote solidarity

Raymundo Navarro Fernández, director of foreign relations of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC), opened the conference by urging attendees to visit Cuba, promising expressions of solidarity equal to those he was receiving at this conference. He offered statistics demonstrating the growing strength of Cuba’s economy and the resulting social benefits being enjoyed by all of Cuba’s people.

With an eye to Cuba’s future, Navarro explained how the tasks of the new generation are now under discussion. Technical job categories are being developed that will offer fresh continuing education and advancement opportunities for Cuba’s workers, especially youth. He also dealt at length with the problems Cuba faces, most ominously the tightening of the U.S. blockade, the threat of overt military attacks concealed in a secret addendum in the latest update of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and the U.S. funding of counter revolutionaries inside Cuba.

Advances in Cuban health care

Another speaker from Cuba, María Rodríguez Pedroso, member of the National Secretariat Healthcare Workers Union, CTC, detailed the tremendous advances the revolution has made in healthcare for all Cubans, including the recent law expanding social security measures like extending fully paid maternity leave from 6 months to a full year. A concerted effort is now underway to renovate the health facilities that suffered the effects of the “special period” now that the economy has recovered.

A dramatic banner with enlarged photos of the five Cuban political prisoners now held in U.S. federal prisons covered part of one wall of the conference hall. Retired Judge Claudia Morcom detailed ongoing work to make the case of the Five well known. (For information on the Cuban Five, visit www.freethefive.org and www.freethefiveny.org)

Several of the Cuban speakers spoke with justifiable pride of Cuba’s Operation Milagro and the Latin American School of Medicine (LASM). Operation Milagro has restored the sight of many thousands unable to afford capitalist-priced treatment. The LASM provides free medical training to youth from around the world who otherwise could only dream of such education.

Bill Camp, Executive Secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, described an exciting project where doctors from the U.S. and Cuba plus medical professionals and volunteers jointly work with Cuban-trained Garífuna doctors to develop health clinics. The Garífuna are Honduran descendents of African people who escaped enslavement and who were represented at the conference. A delegation from the New York health care workers union, 1199 SEIU, also participated.

Mexican unionists speak

The conference was honored to have the presence of Lauro López García and Fernando Muñoz Ponce, two leaders of the Mexican Union of Electricians, characterized by López García as the only union in Mexico that has been successful in stopping the widespread privatization of formerly public Mexican enterprises. Muñoz Ponce pointed out that the buying power of Mexican workers’ salaries is decreasing year after year. And with no significant number of new jobs being created, Mexican workers are thus forced across the Mexican/U.S. border in search of the means to feed their families.

Both López García and Muñoz Ponce spoke with pride of the Mexican people’s growing readiness to fight for their rights: the miners of Lázaro Cárdenas, the flower sellers of Atenco and the people of the state of Oaxaca. The conference also warmly welcomed José Jacques Medina, presently a federal deputy of the Mexican Congress and a longtime advocate for Mexican immigrant workers.

Camilo Romero of United Students Against Sweatshops, described the life and death struggle of the SINALTRAINAL union at Coca Cola in Colombia. Coca Cola, in its quest for ever greater profits, hires Colombian death-squad members (paramilitaries) to kill union militants.

Immigrants’ struggle inside U.S.

With a detailed exposition of the crimes of U.S. imperialism against Spanish-speaking people in the U.S. Southwest, youth activist and World Social Forum organizer, Ché López, set the stage for a discussion of the struggles of immigrant workers in the U.S. Javier Rodríguez, leader of the March 25 Coalition in Los Angeles, gave an overview of the tremendous million-fold immigrant mobilizations of last spring.

Elena Herrada, who opened the Detroit Centro Obrero on May 1 last year, noted that auto parts plants are now super-exploiting immigrant workers right in Michigan in the same way as in the border factories known as maquiladoras. Juan José Gutiérrez from Latino Movement, USA, expressed the need for unity by describing the revolutionary and leadership characteristics of Fidel Castro.

Gloria Verdieu of the San Diego International Action Center highlighted the role of documented and undocumented workers in the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast following Katrina. She also introduced San Diego FIST activist Mary Tamburro, whose group, along with youth from other San Diego organizations, has challenged and successfully impeded the anti-immigrant activities of the so-called Minutemen along the border and at day labor hiring sites where these fascists harass and threaten workers.