BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND BRIAN TAYLOR
HAVANA - "This was a political congress, a congress of revolutionaries... a congress of workers in power," said Cuban president Fidel Castro. He was addressing the closing session of the convention of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC).
The gathering of the country's nationwide trade union federation, which began April 27 at the convention palace here, concluded April 30. Then delegates and guests joined the May Day march.
"This was not a four-day meeting," Castro said. "The congress lasted a whole year." The CTC leadership issued the call for the convention on May 1, 1995. A series of union conferences were then organized in local areas across Cuba. Following these meetings, the National Committee of the trade union federation produced a document, referred to as the Theses of the 17th Congress of the CTC, that was discussed among union members.
Some 81,000 workplace meetings to discuss the resolution and to elect delegates were held from January 15 to March 15, involving more than 3 million union members. The CTC organizes 97 percent of the country's labor force.
Some 3,700 people attended the congress. They included the 1,900 delegates elected by workplace assemblies, 400 guests from Cuba, and 1,400 international observers from 197 unions and other labor organizations in 46 countries.
Francisco Durán, member of the National Secretariat of the CTC, informed participants that among the voting delegates, 54 percent were currently working in production or service jobs and the rest were on full-time for their unions. The average age of the delegates was 41, with about a third being 35 years old or younger. Nearly 600, or 31 percent, were women. Durán also noted that 311 of the delegates had participated in internationalist missions around the world.
Delegates were divided into six working commissions on the opening day, which took up the issues of employment and reorganization of the workforce, increasing efficiency in production and labor productivity, raising agricultural production, the structure of workers' wages, organization of the unions, defense of the revolution, and international solidarity.
The commissions considered thousands of proposals raised at the precongress assemblies and prepared 16 resolutions that were discussed, amended, and adopted by the delegates, building on the CTC theses.
During the last three days of the congress, delegates worked in plenary sessions chaired by CTC general secretary Pedro Ross, who also gave the opening report presenting a balance sheet of the work of the trade union federation over the last year. In addition to the national secretariat of the CTC, Cuban president Fidel Castro, most government ministers, and the entire Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba took part in the proceedings with voice.
The first plenary session was devoted nearly in its entirety to discussing this year's sugarcane harvest and prospects for next year. The battle to reverse the drastic drop in sugar production, which fell to a 50-year low of 3.3 million tons last year from 8.4 million tons in 1990, had permeated the work of the unions leading up to the congress. Sugarcane production collapsed as shortages of fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, and spare parts for cane-cutting machinery mounted following the abrupt end in aid and trade at preferential prices with the former Soviet bloc countries at the beginning of the 1990s.
In his opening report, Ross informed delegates that sugar production had just exceeded 4 million tons. By the end of the congress, that figure rose to 4.15 million tons, indicating that the nationwide target of 4.5 million tons will "probably be surpassed by mid-May," said Ross.
After delegates from Santiago and Sancti Spíritus gave lively reports on the success in meeting the quotas in their provinces before the CTC congress, Manuel Cordero, general secretary of the sugar workers union, proposed that delegates adopt a goal to increase next year's harvest by 800,000 tons. Following the enthusiastic response of most delegates, Ross said that 1 million tons could be considered a targeted raise for next year.
At that point, Fidel Castro intervened in the discussion and said a more precise assessment of the extraordinary effort by workers in this year's harvest was necessary before any goals are adopted. He said tilling land and planting for the next season was somewhat behind and that at least two provinces, Cienfuegos and Matanzas, were not on course to meet their quotas this year. The Cuban president urged a serious discussion on these points. "What is important is the direction we are going," Castro said, "not prematurely adopting goals, without all the facts in front of us, that can end up being unrealistic and demoralize workers if not met."
The delegates decided not to adopt any goals for next year's harvest and instead organize the unions in every province to help put together a serious balance sheet of this year's results by the end of May before proposing any local quotas.
Antonio Neto, president of the World Federation of Trade Unions; Inger Hagensen, general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation of Norway; Fang Jiade, vice president of National Trade Union Federation of China; and union officials from a number of countries read messages of solidarity.
Many of the international guests had a chance to visit various workplaces and talk directly with Cuban workers. Cuban railroad engineer Arturo Sánchez Iznaga took five rail workers from the United States on a late evening tour of the main Havana railway station April 28.
The rail workers from the United States learned that in Cuba each train has a minimum of a five-person crew. United Transportation Union member Joe Swanson from San Francisco, who has worked on the railroads for 30 years, described to a group of Cuban workers how the U.S. rail barons have cut crews on most freight lines to two people, leading to increased safety hazards and fatal accidents.
Kevin Robinson was one of two dock workers there from Liverpool, England. The members of the Transport and General Workers Union were on their first trip to Cuba, along with several other trade unionists from the United Kingdom. The two are among 500 dock workers fired by management in Liverpool for refusing to cross a picket line.
Robinson said they came to tell their story and learn from Cuban workers. "If capitalism has no boundaries, then we as trade unions make it clear we have no boundaries when it comes to workers' struggles," he affirmed.