Unionists learn how Cuba copes with conversion
By Bill Massey
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
More than 200 labor unionists and activists from Cuba,
Quebec, Canada and the United States took part in a two-day
conference here July 26-28. They came away with a greater
understanding about how the harsh realities of a
capitalist-dominated world affect Cuba--and how its
revolutionary social system prepares the country to deal with
these problems and pressures.
For example, participants heard how Cuba is dealing with
rock-bottom low sugar prices on the world capitalist market.
The downward pressure on prices is due in no small part to
market speculation, and to rich countries like the United
States subsidizing agribusiness.
The five-cents-a-pound price for sugar does not cover
production costs. But companies that sell sugar to the United
States and the European market receive protectionist subsidies.
This, combined with the growth in synthetic sweetener
production, has caused Cuba to convert the sugar industry and
close half of the least productive mills. Former
sugar-producing land will now be used to grow fruits and rice,
and for livestock.
This move was taken only after long consultation with the
affected workers. Beginning in September these workers will be
enrolled in universities for retraining. Education is free in
Cuba, and they will continue to receive 100 percent of their
salaries until they are re-employed.
Will former Enron employees get to shape their futures this
way?
What became clear at the Windsor conference is that Cuban
unions and their members are a powerful force in determining
how things are done in their country. Before a law that affects
working people can be discussed in parliament it must first be
discussed in all the work places. If rejected on the shop
floor, proposals don't become law.
Labor solidarity
The July 26-28 conference took place in the Canadian Auto
Workers Local 444 hall. The U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange and
Worker-to-Worker Canada/Cuba Labor Solidarity Committee
organized the event.
The conference opened on the anniversary of the 1953 opening
battle in Cuba's revolutionary struggle that ended in victory
six-and-a-half years later.
Cuba sent an impressive delegation of labor leaders to the
conference. They included General Secretary of the
Confederation of Cuban Workers Pedro Ross Leal and other CTC
officials, and General Secretary of the Public Administrative
Workers Union Diana Maria Garcia. First they met with members
of the African American community here and then with elected
union officials from Canada, Quebec and the United States.
The conference had significant labor endorsement: the
Canadian Labor Congress, the country's steel workers, public
employees, postal workers, and provincial and general employees
unions, and the United Food and Commercial Workers.
In the Canadian labor delegation were the vice president of
the Canadian Labor Congress, the national president of the
Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the president of the
Ontario Federation of Labor.
There was much discussion about the Free Trade Areas of the
Americas. From Nov. 25 to Nov. 28 in Havana, Cuba will host the
second conference against the FTAA--the attempt by U.S.
imperialism to loot the domestic wealth of Latin America and
the Caribbean.
At a closing conference panel, co-chair Ashaki Binta of
Black Workers for Justice said she was inspired by the Cuban
Revolution and saw it as an example for all the oppressed
people of the world.
Her co-chair, Martha Grevatt, former national secretary of
Pride At Work-AFL-CIO, pointed out that while there is still
some backwardness about gay people in Cuba, there are no
anti-lesbian/gay/bisexual/ trans laws like the kind that are
still on the books in some states in the United States, and
that Cuba does not tolerate gay-bashing.
Leonel Gonzalez of Cuba and Gloria La Riva of the Free the
Five Committee discussed the case of the five Cuban heroes
currently imprisoned in the United States for the "crime" of
monitoring right-wing terrorists training there to attack their
island nation. An announcement was made at the conference that
a Canadian Free the Five Committee would be formed to
coordinate the campaign to win their freedom.
More information on the campaign to free the five can be
found at a new web site: www.freethefive.org.
Reprinted from the Aug. 8, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
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