BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
HAVANA, Cuba - "We will defend at any cost our national independence, socialist ideals, and the political power of the revolution, which is the power of the workers," said Pedro Ross, general secretary of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC). He was reading the political declaration adopted by the delegates at the final session of the trade union federation's 17th congress on April 30.

The four-day gathering concluded a year-long process that began when the CTC issued the call for the congress on May Day 1995. Through successive rounds of CTC conferences in all of Cuba's municipalities and assemblies at worksites involving more than 3 million workers, Cuba's labor movement took stock of what the working class has accomplished in increasing its management role and making the decisive difference in the effort to reverse the collapse of industrial and agricultural production.

The congress adopted a series of resolutions building on the political document that served as the basis for debate and election of delegates - known as the Theses for the 17th Congress. The decisions of the convention serve as a launching pad for further collective efforts by workers themselves to push Cuba's economic recovery forward and resist the escalating economic war by Washington.

Some 3,700 people attended the gathering. They included the 1,900 delegates elected by workplace assemblies, 400 guests from Cuba, and nearly 1,400 observers from 197 unions and other labor organizations in 50 countries.

Francisco Durán, a member of the CTC's National Secretariat, 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 delegates was 41, with about one third being 35 years old and younger. Nearly 600, or 31 percent, were women. (Women represent 42 percent of the country's labor force of 4.6 million.)

Durán also noted that 311 of the delegates had participated in internationalist missions around the world - from volunteering to fight the invading racist armies of South Africa in Angola in the 1970s and 80s, to serving as teachers, doctors, or engineers in numerous semicolonial countries.

Most of the congress proceedings were broadcast on radio and television so millions of Cubans could see or hear what went on.

On the opening day, April 27, delegates were divided into six working commissions that 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 many of the thousands of proposals raised at precongress assemblies and prepared 16 resolutions that were discussed, amended, and adopted by the delegates.

During the last three days of the gathering, delegates worked in plenary sessions chaired by Ross, who also gave the opening report. 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.

Success of sugar harvest
"There is nothing more politically important than the successful culmination of the sugar harvest," said Ross in his opening report to the first plenary session April 28. "Within a few weeks, we will be able to tell our people, the whole country and the world that we exceeded the production plan set for the harvest.... The workers in our main industry achieved this triumph step by step, together with the cane cutters, who mobilized in response to the call made by the leadership of the revolution."

Sugarcane production collapsed to record lows in the years 1993-95 as shortages of fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, and spare parts for cane-cutting machinery mounted. Heavy rains and flooding also took a toll. The acute shortages were triggered by the post- 1989 abrupt end in aid and favorable trade relations with the former Soviet bloc countries, opening what the Cubans refer to as the "special period." The 1994 harvest fell to 4 million tons from 4.2 million the year before, less than half the 8.4 million produced in 1990. Last year, another disastrous crop yielded a 50- year low of 3.3 million tons.

By the end of the congress sugar production had reached 4.15 million tons and projections indicated that the national goal of 4.5 million tons would be surpassed before the end of May.

The reversal of the decline in sugar production had a big impact in boosting the self-confidence and morale of union members.

"I'll never experienced such contagious spirit to meet production goals," said Bárbara Arencido, a delegate from the sugar workers union in Villa Clara, at the opening of the discussion. Some 205 sugar workers were among the delegates.

Arencido reported that 15,000 sugar workers from Sancti Spiritus, taking 51 combines and 60 trucks, went to Villa Clara, the number one province in sugar cane production, to help with the harvest there after meeting targets in their areas. Sancti Spiritus and Santiago de Cuba were the first provinces to meet their goals before the CTC congress opened. "We adopted the slogan, `We can accomplish much together,' [Se puede mucho juntos ]" said Arencido. That became the official theme of the congress. After Villa Clara met its quota on May Day, union members from that province took off for Holguín to help out.

Throughout the sessions, delegations made announcements with chants and songs, reporting on the progress of the harvest in each province.

The CTC had also organized hundreds of thousands of workers to volunteer to cut sugar cane by hand in fields where even the best combines could not enter because the ground was damp. Many of them had prior experience, minimizing waste in the harvest. "The macheteros cut the cane real clean this year," said Ana del Carmen Roya, a delegate from Palma de Soriano in Santiago.

In addition, the government had been able to secure some $300 million in credits, although at high interest rates, for investments in fertilizers, pesticides, and spare parts. For the first time, metal workers in Havana and elsewhere manufactured 500 motors for rebuilding cane harvester engines this year. As much as possible, cane refining was channeled to mills where maintenance and the organization of labor had resulted in higher yields.

Not taking premature goals
After the initial reports of success, 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. After many delegates responded enthusiastically, Ross suggested that 1 million tons could be considered as a targeted increase for next year.

At that point, Fidel Castro intervened in the discussion. He said a more precise assessment of the extraordinary effort by workers in this year's harvest was necessary before any goals are adopted. Castro noted that tilling land and planting for the next season was somewhat behind, and that some provinces 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."

That session was extended late into the evening to pursue the discussion.

Julio Martínez, a delegate from Las Tunas, explained the steps taken in his province to overcome the slowdown in the harvest there because of recent heavy rains. Construction contingents were mobilized from around the country and built 205 km of roads and 150 km of drainage channels so that cane could be transported to dryer areas, he said.

By the end of the session, the delegates decided not to adopt any goals for next season but instead organize the unions in every province to help put together a serious balance sheet of this year's results before proposing any local quotas.

The 30 percent increase in this year's harvest over 1995, however, has already made projections for a 5 percent increase of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 1996 more solid. Last year, GDP grew by 2.7 percent. These results improve Cuba's capacity to import needed goods, since sugar remains the country's main export crop and a primary source of hard currency.

But above all, as Aruca Carbonel, secretary of the sugar workers union in Santiago, put it, "Our unions were in the thick of this decisive battle. Now thousands of workers know better how to lead."

A taste of capitalism workers reject
"Among all the sections of the Theses, the one most debated and which received the most support is the section titled `Our strategy does not lead to capitalism,' " said Ross in his opening report. This point permeated the discussion during the second plenary session.

Since 1993, the government has decriminalized possession and use of U.S. dollars; introduced or raised prices on electricity, water, sewage, and other services; opened up markets for sale of agricultural and some industrial goods at unregulated prices; legalized self-employment in dozens of occupations; and signed a multitude of joint ventures to attract capital investment in tourism, mining, oil, and other areas. These measures, aimed at combating inflation and increasing production, have led to growing social inequalities, Ross noted.

"Workers can understand the fact that there are greater social inequalities than we have been accustomed to, if they are necessary to revitalize the economy," Ross stated. "What we will not tolerate and will decisively combat is the development of cronyism, nepotism, privilege, corruption, and theft."

"In tourism we see manifestations of capitalism most workers reject," said Lázaro Bacallao, a delegate from the construction workers union in Varadero, a beach resort in Matanzas province. He pointed to some cases of theft from tourist hotels where management, and in some cases union members, have looked the other way.

The tourism workers union "must struggle against" the siphoning "off of funds, corruption, by those who turn management positions into places for stealing," responded Pedro Ross. He said workers who report such incidents "have the full support of the revolution, the top leadership of the revolution."

Delegates resolved that the unions will act to minimize theft of state resources through organization of voluntary guards and discussions at workers assemblies, as has been done successfully in many factories.

Bacallao and other delegates pointed to the voluntary contributions the majority of tourism workers make to the state for the import of medicines that are in short supply. These donations come from tips these workers receive in hard currency. Individuals who receive hard currency can purchase scarce essential items in dollar stores like soap and oil that many Cubans are unable to obtain. "We are workers who have decided to live in a socialist society under the direction of the Communist Party," Bacallao said. "Solidarity is our answer to the individualism and corruption rampant in capitalist countries."

During the April 29 session, Sara Tamayo, a delegate who works at Palmares Restaurants in Guardalavaca, and Pedro Chacón, who runs a tourist show taming crocodiles in Ciénaga de Zapata, contributed $16,000 and $20,000 respectively that they had received in tips in the last few years. Since 1993 workers in tourism have donated $1.9 million from tips for the purchase of medicines.

During the special period phenomena like prostitution and begging by children, which the revolution had virtually eliminated, have reappeared, Bacallao said, mostly around tourist installations where hotel employees are often bribed to permit access to the facilities by pimps and prostitutes. He said the unions must take steps to combat organized prostitution around the hotels and that laws should be enacted severely punishing pimping as a crime while avoiding repressive measures against prostitutes themselves. Other delegates who spoke or were interviewed supported these proposals. "That is a struggle we must wage, because it is becoming a business that is actually counterrevolutionary," Bacallao said.

Vilma Espín, president of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), took the floor at the end of that session. "When in the early years of the revolution the people learned that scourges such as gambling and prostitution had been eliminated in Cuba," she said, "the revolution's prestige increased enormously." Espín said the country's penal code will be amended to include pimping and organizing children to beg as a crime. Fidel Castro added that "those who can play a decisive role in this, aside from the administrative bodies that take measures, are the tourism workers themselves."

Lowering unregulated market prices
Taking action to bring down prices on the agricultural markets became another hot topic of discussion. These markets have made food more readily available in cities and towns, easing the most acute conditions Cubans faced at the bottom of the special period in 1993-94. At the same time, food production has not increased as rapidly as most people hoped and the prices remain so high that most Cubans can not afford to buy enough to meet their needs at these markets.

Sarbelio Morales, a member of the First Eastern Front Contingent in Ciego de Avila, gave a passionate presentation on the subject. He explained how his agricultural contingent of 400, which now produces for the Santiago markets, made leaps in production of potatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers by utilization of better seeds and rotating the crops.

The farm sells 92 percent of its produce to the state warehouse and distribution agency (called acopio) - used to supply food at subsidized prices on the ration card - and the rest on the agriculture market. "We take cabbages and sell them at 3.5 cents [per pound], sweet potatoes at 6.5 cents, potatoes at 10 cents," Morales said. "But then I see how these farmers markets sell tubers at such high prices putting everyone in such dire straits.... No cabbage can cost five pesos in Cuba. Not a single one.

"Comrades, we producers must try to lower prices in the agricultural markets through our production," he declared.

Even after selling most vegetables to the state and charging low prices on the unregulated market the farm is profitable, Morales said. "So why should we strive to make such an exaggerated profit at the expense of the poor? What about the millions of retired?"

In the last two years, the Youth Army of Labor (EJT), has been bringing produce into the cities and selling it directly off trucks at cheaper prices than those offered on the agricultural markets, thus helping to keep the prices down. The EJT consists of special units of youth in the Revolutionary Armed Forces that work on state farms alongside agricultural workers. Morales and other delegates said spreading the EJT example to state farms and the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) will help drive prices down.

UBPCs are new farm cooperatives that have replaced most state farms since 1993 in an effort to revive food production. Members of the UBPCs - mostly workers formerly employed on state farms -

own and sell what they produce but the land itself remains nationalized.

"It is the producers, not the government with its laws, who establish the conditions. The ministry has already adopted measures and told us to take a higher percentage to the market at cheap prices. But the initiative must come out of the producers themselves, who must understand they will solve the problem of the people," Morales said, bringing the audience to its feet for a standing ovation.

"In this colossal battle we are engaged in," responded Fidel Castro, "it is the socialists, working men and women like you, who should tell us what socialism promises and can do and what capitalism can promise and offer."

Castro said that because of the efforts by workers and peasants the revolution has been able to guarantee during this difficult period a liter of milk per day to all children under 7 years of age. "What other country in Latin America has been able to achieve this?" he asked.

"What you said today and the example you gave us has taught us what capitalism is," Castro told Morales.

Increasing food production
Several delegates pointed to leadership initiatives by workers in the countryside to increase food production.

A revealing exchange took place on this point under discussion on reversing the collapse of beef and milk production. Nearly half the cattle in the country have died since 1989 because of lack of animal feed, which used to be imported almost entirely from the USSR, or have been slaughtered for beef that is very scarce. Fresh milk production dropped from 829 million liters in 1989 to 320 million in 1995. Because of lack of pesticides and other resources some 2.8 million acres of pasture land have been overrun by marabú and other weeds.

Jesús González Sánchez, a delegate from Manicaragua said workers lacked machetes to cut marabú in his area. Domingo Gutiérez from a cattle-raising UBPC in Sancti Spiritus also attributed declining production to the lack of material resources, especially animal fodder.

But Arnaldo Ramírez from the UBPC Mal Tiempo [Bad Weather] in Las Tunas told a story that pointed to a different approach. He explained how he took the initiative to establish a dairy UBPC at Amancio, a remote part of the province that lacked roads and other infrastructure, where it was difficult even for the government to provide milk for several hundred children in the area.

Ramírez said he and two mechanics began in 1994 by going to the surrounding towns and recruiting several youth who were unemployed. They made their first machetes from blades of abandoned sugar cane combines, which they used to clear hundreds of acres of land. "When a new group asked to join I told them to bring their own machetes before they came," he said. Marabú, a thick weed, is now used for firewood.

Workers got files and other tools from donations of peasants in the area. Lacking wire, they built fences out of mesh made of sticks and plants in order to guard cattle that had been abandoned and roamed wild. They found an older worker who taught them how to milk cows. And a state enterprise donated a tractor. Within a year they were producing 127,000 liters of milk annually from 120 cows. "We didn't have a truck to transport the milk so we asked and got some mules," he said.

The provincial government also provided them with 13 bicycles and with some construction materials. By the end of 1995 workers there had built 20 low-cost housing units for UBPC members.

The news of the success at Mal Tiempo began to spread. Ramírez said the UBPC now has 56 members who average 28 years of age, have cleared 1,200 acres of pasture land, and made a small profit last year. "Over there we are all workers. We are convincing more people. Even the union secretary and the head of the Communist Party in the region moved and now live and work on the UBPC," he said, drawing a standing ovation. "And we are now providing milk for 700 children in Amancio."

A genuine recovery in cattle raising and dairy production around the country is still several years away, several delegates pointed out. But, as Julio Rodríguez from Guantánamo put it, "Mal Tiempo tells us we can speed the day."

At the same time, production of root and garden vegetables, citrus, tobacco, timber, and honey have increased around the country. Many delegates attributed this to the reorganization of state farms into cooperatives where workers exercise more democratic control over the organization of labor and the use of land and other resources, have reduced administrative personnel to a minimum, and provide workers incentives linked to productivity.

On some UBPCs, those who do the hardest physical labor, like ox drivers, earn the most. And the monthly income of most production workers is higher than that of administrators.

Reallocation of workforce
Salvador Valdés Mesa, Minister of Labor and Social Security, told delegates that for the first time in some years there was a significant net growth in the agricultural workforce. Since mid- 1995, some 50,000 have joined cooperatives and state farms. Among those are 32,000 new members of the UBPCs, the majority in sugar cane cooperatives.

Valdés said these figures show some modest progress in the joint effort by the government and the unions to reallocate the workforce toward productive activities where workers are mostly needed, like agriculture.

Since the beginning of the special period, some 120,000 workers have had to be reallocated from industries where the drop in production necessitated a cut in the workforce, Valdés said. But no one has been left on the street. Most of these workers have gotten new jobs and only 11,000 still receive unemployment benefits until they find new occupations.

During the commission on organization of the unions, Armando Plaza, a delegate from Holguín, proposed that the CTC begin the process of unionizing self-employed workers. This was included in the resolution from that commission and approved by the delegates.

At the beginning of this year, 204,000 people were registered as self-employed in Cuba in more than 150 occupations. The real figure is much higher, since there are tens of thousands who provide repair services for appliances, sell food on the street, or give taxi rides with their cars without license to avoid paying taxes. Today self-employed workers, especially those with skills, often earn many times the salary of most factory workers.

Delegates supported strict enforcement of heavily progressive taxation on the income of self-employed or others with high incomes. "The psychology of self-employed workers tends toward individualism and is not a source of socialist consciousness," said Plaza. "But our work with them should stress their status as workers." Other delegates said unionizing the self-employed can strengthen the unity of the labor movement.

Value of manual labor
During discussion on the reorganization of the labor force, Fidel Castro pointed to some of the challenges the revolution faces.

He said there is reason to feel pride because of the high numbers of professionals and technical personnel in the country, but at the same time those figures should be reason for concern. "Manual labor has to be valued highly," he said. "Otherwise who will plant potatoes, who will clean the streets?"

"Everyone wants to be a professional in this country," Castro stated, "a vice created by the revolution itself, by universities." Academics often give inflated figures on how many engineers or other professionals are needed that have nothing to do with reality, he noted.

In the capitalist countries immigrants who are paid starvation wages do the most difficult jobs in construction or agriculture, Castro said. In Cuba the revolution has tried to solve this problem during the special period by giving incentives to workers in the least desired and most physically demanding jobs. "That's why," he said, "I am not sad at all that agricultural workers who used to get paid 80 pesos per month now can earn up to 11,000 pesos a year with a lot of hard work."

Delegates affirmed the CTC policy that there can be no general increase in the basic wage rates under current economic conditions, but workers' income can increase in many sectors through incentives linked to raises in production and efficiency. Valdés reported that up to 1 million workers in tobacco, coffee, rice, and sugar cane production, as well as energy, fishing, and ports now get part of their wages in hard currency or can purchase scarce goods at subsidized rates.

Economic efficiency
"If we are not capable of leading the struggle for economic efficiency, then we cannot represent well our workers," said María del Carmen Coba, a union delegate from Villa Clara. "We must prove that efficiency is not something associated with capitalist enterprise." This point was discussed throughout the congress.

Many delegates gave numerous examples of how workers are playing a more direct role in improving production, productivity, and working conditions, as well as reducing waste and cutting losses by state enterprises. Rounds of discussions at CTC- sponsored workplace assemblies have played a big role in this process, many delegates said.

Luis Romero Diago from the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric plant in Matanzas, the biggest in the country, explained how workers there have managed to run the operation for 131 days in the row without interruption through meticulous maintenance.

Delegates from a factory in Holguín that manufactures engines for sugar cane combines pointed with pride to new machines they began producing last year that ran well in this year's harvest.

Castro responded that at one time combines operated only with Russian engines, which made possible the mechanization of the entire harvest but were very inefficient. "Those were engines that would stop operating at least four times a day," he stated. "This year, however, the engines we used did not stop as much during the entire harvest... Our factories are beginning to turn out better engines." Financing from Spain has permitted purchasing patents for such domestic production and the import of Mercedes Benz motors.

Castro pointed out several times during the congress that Washington's recent escalation of its economic war against Cuba may cut off access to such technology and capital.

International solidarity
"That's why what happens in the class struggle around the world over the next decade is so important for the revolution," said Felipe Vega of the Chemical, Mining, and Energy Workers Union in Matanzas, during one of the breaks, referring to the comments by Castro.

Vega and hundreds of other delegates were keenly interested to exchange experiences with many among the 1,300 international guests who attended the congress, most of whom were trade unionists. Vega gave a tour of petroleum storage facilities and loading docks in Matanzas to two dozen trade unionists from the United States prior to the CTC convention.

Dozens of similar visits to factories, farms, hospitals, schools, and other worksites were organized by the CTC before, during, and after the convention. On May 2 many of the guests from abroad held a meeting with leaders of the CTC and decided to call an international trade union conference in Cuba in the summer of 1997.

`Armed forces of working class'
"Free education and health care for all are gains of the revolution but the most important gain is that we the workers are in power," said Ana María Díaz Canel of the health care workers union. "We will defend this power to the end." She was speaking at the final session of the congress, where delegates discussed defense of the revolution.

The honored guest at that session was carpenter Osvaldo Díaz who made a suggestion 15 years ago at the second congress of the Communist Party that all Cubans make a voluntary contribution of a day's pay per year to help finance the Territorial Troop Militias.

The militias, made up of 1.5 million workers, farmers, students, and housewives, has become a symbol of Cuba's determination to defend its revolution by arming its people. They were established in 1980 as millions of Cubans mobilized in the Marches of the Fighting People in response to escalating U.S. military pressure against Cuba and the revolutions in Nicaragua and Grenada, which had triumphed a year earlier.

Since 1981 the CTC and other mass organizations turned Díaz's suggestion into a campaign that has become popular among the working class. General of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) Raúl Castro, who walked into the hall minutes before the session ended, explained that in these 15 years Cubans have donated nearly 330 million pesos for the militias.

"These are the armed forces of the working class," Raúl Castro said. The imperialists to the north are wasting time if they ponder the loyalty of the Cuban armed forces, he stated, "because the FAR are but a small armed and professional vanguard of this great army made up of millions of men and women in the militias."

The next morning the 1,900 delegates led the million-strong May Day march in Havana, a true festival of the proletariat capping off a year of struggle.  
 
 
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