BY MARTÍN KOPPEL

URBANO NORIS, Cuba - In this sugar-producing town in Holguín province, as in many other parts of the country, working people have dubbed it La Zafra de la Dignidad, the Dignity Harvest.

"The sugar harvest has been a national battle," said Roberto Ricardo, secretary of the sugar workers union in this area. "Here in Holguín we came from behind. But we've just completed the harvest and produced 510,000 tons - the highest amount for any province so far.

"Now we've mobilized brigades to go to Las Tunas province and help finish the work there," Ricardo added.

Through an immense collective effort, workers, farmers, and other Cubans had harvested more than 4.4 million tons of sugar by the third week of June. They had initially expected to reach the national target of 4.5 million tons by mid-May. But the final part of the harvest has been rocky, with heavy rain slowing work in eastern provinces like Holguín and Las Tunas.

Still, Ricardo pointed out, "the harvest is already 1.1 million tons more than last year's," a substantial turnaround. This improvement has been decisive for Cuba's economic recovery over the past year.

Sugar production dropped steeply over the previous five years, reaching a 50-year low of 3.3 million tons in 1995. Production collapsed as shortages of fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, and spare parts for agricultural machinery mounted after the abrupt end in aid and trade at preferential prices with the former Soviet bloc countries at the beginning of the decade. This economic crisis and the government's response to it is known here as the "special period."

Mill workers here noted that the fight for the sugar harvest was a major part of the discussion at the recent convention of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC), the national trade union federation.

"At Urbano Noris we produced 119,000 tons of sugar - one quarter of the total for the province," said plant manager Jorge Díaz. This mill has achieved the highest production of any in the country, although workers at a couple mills in Las Tunas are still competing for that honor. With the harvest over, the mill is now undergoing thorough maintenance.

The Urbano Noris Agro-Industrial Complex here is a huge state enterprise with a workforce of 6,800. Some 1,200 of these are mill workers and most of the rest are agricultural workers. The complex includes two state farms, 16 Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC), and five other agricultural cooperatives.

"Workers on the UBPCs here played a big role in the success of the sugar harvest. They were highly motivated," reported Eliécer Fonseca, general secretary of the municipal CTC. The government transformed most of Cuba's state farms into smaller UBPCs in late 1993. In these co-ops workers own their harvest, which they sell to the state, and decide themselves what to grow and how.

"Our challenge was not just cutting more cane but raising the mill's efficiency," Fonseca said. "The biggest problem wasn't the machinery, but how to train and organize the workforce. We prepared our troops politically. It took a lot of discussion."

A group of maintenance workers described the campaign it took to achieve the production goal. "We have machinery that's old. When it broke down, we would organize collectively to fix it," said Alberto Batista.

Mechanics would volunteer to work through the night to repair the machinery and get production up in time for the morning production shift. Some workers would put in well over 24 hours and would have to be sent home, reported Batista.

"A lot of times we had to invent spare parts," said another worker, pointing to the U.S. company stamps on the pre- revolution machinery. Washington's trade embargo on Cuba limits the import of spare parts.

One innovation was a paint substitute workers concocted with oil and other compounds to protect the metal conveyor belts from rust. Workers who belong to the Association of Innovators and Efficiency Improvers (ANIR) helped repair turbines and other equipment, saving millions of pesos.

Luis Pérez, another maintenance worker, reported that they had found a way to repair a vulcanizing machine in the absence of spare parts. "This technique is one of our secret weapons against the Yankees," he declared.

Workers reported that on-the-job accidents at the mill were down by 50 percent over last year's harvest. Asked why, Omar Rodríguez replied, "Because consciousness went up. Now we're taking better care of the equipment and improving our work methods."

Another front in this battle is the KTP combine factory in the city of Holguín. It had been shut down for a couple of years for lack of parts but is now cranking out new harvesters. At a June 20 municipal conference of ANIR, Justo Max, a mechanical engineer, described how he headed a team that redesigned the KTP-2 combine.

"We redid the hydraulic system, improved the belts, and replaced the old Soviet engine with a Cuban Taíno motor, which has better fuel consumption," Max said. "The redesigned model, KTP-2N, has 50 percent higher productivity." It is considered one of the main achievements of the year.

In Holguín province, as elsewhere, city workers, youth, and retirees mobilized by the thousands to help with the harvest alongside the regular cane cutters. "People came here from the city of Holguín to work in the fields. They brought their own resources from their workplaces, such as trucks and food," said Fonseca. "We also got volunteers from Santiago, Villa Clara, Granma, and elsewhere."

Workers at the Oil Distribution Center in the city of Holguín, a workforce of 340, were among those who volunteered. They are members of the Chemical, Mining, and Energy Workers union.

"At this plant five workers were released to work in the harvest on a permanent basis," said Julio Garrida, a member of the provincial secretariat of the CTC who accompanied us to the facility. "But we sent additional brigades of 20 for shorter periods of time. Almost all the workers here contributed in one way or another."

With the end of the harvest, many workers at this plant have volunteered for the weeding. Garrida said, "We're organizing brigades of 25 to join the weeding for periods of 4-5 days. Different factories are assigned certain areas of land. This plant has 4.5 caballerías [150 acres] of cane to weed in the month of June."

Students mobilize for planting, weeding
Garrida added, "We had something like 2,000 workers mobilized for the sugar harvest. But then Holguín got hit by heavy rains, which prolonged and jeopardized the harvest. So more than 20,000 people mobilized rapidly." Holguín is a city of 300,000 and the province has a population of 1.1 million. The Communist Party, CTC, and other organizations made a call for mass participation in the harvest and spring planting, which overlapped. "The people were like a giant locomotive," said Frank Patterson, a student at the University of Holguín. "Here on campus, departments were shut down on a rotating basis because so many students and professors went into the fields."

"We were called urgently because the rain and mud made it impossible for the combines to get into the cane fields. The cane had to be cut and taken out by hand or by oxen. We were up to our knees in water," Patterson said.

A leader of the Federation of University Students, Patterson is now building the Student Work Brigades (BET), which will help with the weeding, currently behind schedule. "More than 90 percent of the students here have signed up for the BETs in July," he said. The two-week brigades are expected to mobilize 235,000 high school and college students throughout the island.

Hundreds of working people from Holguín have now mobilized to Las Tunas, the final front in the harvest battle. "We've sent five cane-cutting brigades from various unions to Las Tunas," Garrida reported. One of them is the Calixto García brigade, made up of members of the construction workers union.

Omar Rodríguez, a maintenance worker at the sugar mill in Urbano Noris, commented on the discipline and creativity that working people demonstrated in the 1996 harvest. "Like Fidel [Castro] said, some day they'll have to build a monument to the special period. We've accomplished things we didn't know we could do before."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home