BY DAN FURMAN
The following article appeared in the August 17 issue of
the Portuguese-language semiweekly Independente, published
in the Portuguese and Brazilian community of Newark, New
Jersey. The author's English-language version appears
below.
This is the second in a three-part series reporting on the Cuba Lives International Youth Festival which took place August 1-7. More than 1,300 delegates from 57 countries attended the festival. Dan Furman and Ruth Nebbia participated in the festival both as U.S. delegates and as journalists interested in the topics that the international delegates discussed throughout the Cuban provinces.
More than 100 delegates from the Cuba Lives International Youth Festival traveled to the province of Pinar del Río to discuss the issue of employment. The 1,300 delegates to the youth festival split up for three days to attend conferences on issues ranging from employment to health care and democracy.
Cubans from Pinar del Río gave us a big welcome. Pinar del Río borders Havana province and is the westernmost province in Cuba. The buses stopped several times along the way and we were greeted with parades, dancers, and salsa bands. The Cuban families who we stayed with threw parties the evening we arrived for us to get to know the neighborhood. In addition to the international guests, delegates from Cuba, elected through organizations and workplaces across the country, also participated with us in the festival.
When the discussions got under way, it quickly became clear that despite the large number of countries that delegates had come from, the problems of employment and unemployment facing all were strikingly similar.
"In countries like France, Italy, and Spain, the governments are implementing labor reforms that cut back the rights workers won through struggle," said Francisco Cano Portero of Spain. A participant from Argentina reported that social benefits are under attack with the introduction of new labor laws.
"The problems of Brazil are the same as the problems of Argentina, Mexico, and of all other countries with the exception of Cuba," said Martha Jares of Brazil. "The response of the Brazilian government to the oil workers' strike was to send in the military to break the workers' organizations."
Angel Lariscy from the United States spoke about the strike by workers at Caterpillar in Illinois and how the company has fought to break the union there. "Only 11 percent of U.S. workers are in unions, and this percentage continues to decline," added Rebecca Gettleman, a U.S. delegate from San Francisco. According to her, the attacks against unions are part of the drive by employers and the government to increase productivity and profits as the world sinks into a deepening economic crisis.
Delegates from Cuba explained that Cuba faces the same world economic crisis, even though it is not a capitalist country. The biggest blow to the Cuban economy came in 1989, when the collapse of the Soviet-bloc governments meant Cuba suddenly lost its major trading partners, including its source of oil. Instead of trading sugar for oil, Cuba is now forced to buy everything with hard currency and sell its products at world market prices (often greatly deflated). Cubans have called this crisis the "special period." Due to the lack of fuel and parts, many factories and employers in Cuba have been forced to close or vastly reduce their workforce.
"Unemployment was not a problem before," said Sergio, a Cuban delegate and leader of the Union of Young Communists. "We are now faced with the challenge of how to preserve full employment - one of the main achievements of the revolution - under the pressure of the U.S. blockade, which limits investment. Employment for students after graduation is guaranteed by the government. But there are not always jobs available in the field studied, so people have to take other options."
"The government's police was not unleashed in the streets against these workers," emphasized Salvador Valdés Mesa, Cuban minister of labor and social security, who addressed the delegates the following day. Prior to the revolution of 1959, he pointed out, Cuba was afflicted with chronic unemployment and underemployment in an underdeveloped economy that depended on a seasonal sugar harvest. Unemployment stood at 24 percent, according to official figures which did not include women. With the enormous projects launched by the revolution, unemployment dropped to 1.3 percent in the mid-sixties.
"The first thing was to protect the workers," continued Valdés. "When a worker is unemployed, for a time he receives 60 percent of his salary. Then the state offers him employment in the field in which he has been trained. It may involve moving, and some workers refuse. There is no law that forces anyone to stay in a job."
Despite the shortages, Valdés pointed out, not one hospital, day-care center or school has been closed, and the infant mortality rate has actually declined in the last two years.
After hitting bottom in 1993, the Cuban economy has begun to recover slowly, growing 0.7 percent in 1994 and 2 percent so far in 1995. This recovery is largely due to measures adopted by the National Assembly after being debated and discussed in assemblies by workers across the country. These measures have included increased foreign investment, particularly in the tourism industry, legalization of the use of the U.S. dollar by Cubans, and the opening of agricultural markets at unregulated prices.
Tourism was the largest source of national income last year, and $2 billion were brought in through foreign investment in "joint enterprises" (jointly operated by a foreign investor and the Cuban government.) The Cuban peso, after dropping to 120 pesos to the dollar last summer, has climbed back up to 35 pesos to the dollar. A layer of Cubans who worked in factories are now self-employed - working as messengers or operating small restaurants in their home. Further measures are being discussed that would allow Cubans to employ other Cubans in such ventures.
"With these changes, there is the possibility a person will receive benefits that do not correspond to their social contribution," said José Luis Rodríguez, minister of economics and planning. "Self-employment...is essentially of a personal character. We want a single system in which everyone participates."
Rodríguez pointed out that more workers are currently needed in sugarcane production than in tourism. Sugar remains the main product of Cuba, he said, and the harvest has been low in the last several years partly because there is no fuel for labor-saving machines. Several types of incentive pay, including partial payment of salaries in dollars, have been introduced to encourage workers to work in the sugar fields.
These moves have caused some to speculate that Cuba is moving slowly toward adopting a market economy. While there is a layer in Cuba and many in the United States who hope for such a course, it was not the framework presented to us by any of the Cuban leaders who spoke with us. They presented the opposite.
The introduction of capitalist methods such as these, said Valdés, "are risks that we are taking...but if we don't do this, we will lose the revolution. There are symptoms of corruption with tourism and the rest." But, he added, "this has to be solved through the state and the work of the party. Our system does not only produce economic results - it also has to produce moral results."
Speaking of the development of tourism as a major source of income at the final session of the international delegates, Fidel Castro explained that this was "the only alternative for saving the revolution and saving the gains of the revolution." The "joint ventures," the tourist trade, and the legalization of the dollar inevitably brought increased inequality in society, but it is done "not as an opportunist move but as a revolutionary measure - so we can get food, medicine, electricity, and fuel for the people," Castro said.
People continue to talk about the transition occurring in Cuba, he continued, "as if we will follow the example of the former socialist camp." If Cuba seems alone in the world at this moment, said Fidel, "look at the big page of history we are writing."
Delegates to the employment discussion adopted a resolution that called for the recognition of employment as a right and an essential element of participation of the individual in society as a whole. The resolution pointed out that the divisions between employed and unemployed workers, and the divisions based on nationality, race, immigration status or sex, are all obstacles to the workers uniting in struggle.