BY BRIAN TAYLOR

HAVANA, Cuba - "We're here to find out the facts so that when we return to the United States we can explain the truth about the Cuban revolution." That's what James Harris, the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. president, told workers at the Fernando García cooperative in the outskirts of the city.

This Basic Unit of Cooperative Production (UBPC), like other UBPCs was formed by subdividing a local state farm. Cooperative members own and sell what they produce but the land remains nationalized.

Harris, who is a meatpacker and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Atlanta, spent two weeks in Cuba April 20-May 4 participating with other U.S. trade unionists in the 17th Congress of the Central Organization of Trade Unions (CTC) and activities surrounding it.

He was one of 50 trade unionists who traveled here with the U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange. In addition to attending the CTC congress, the union activists visited a thermoelectric plant, petroleum loading docks, and construction sites in Matanzas and several other workplaces in Havana. "This was a real congress of the working class in power," Harris said, noting the confidence and enthusiasm of delegates as well as the detail and seriousness of their deliberations.

On May 3, the last day of the trip, the Union of Young Communists (UJC) organized meetings for Harris at the farm cooperative, the Antillana de Acero steel mill, and the University of Havana. During these visits Harris spoke about the reality of the class struggle in the United States and his election campaign.

The Fernando García UBPC has 167 workers who include cane cutters, machine operators, and maintenance workers, 12 administrators, and workers who grow food on a piece of land for the consumption of cooperative members. Harris noted that previously in Cuba up to 40 percent of the workforce on some state farms might be nonproduction personnel. He asked what changes had occurred at that farm.

"Before, when we were a state farm there were 44 administrators, now there are only 12, five of whom are actually production workers," said Juan Sarmiento, a director on the farm. "In the past the government would organize our farm and make goals for us. Now we make the proposals and organize the workforce. It makes more sense this way because we know the land the best."

Harris asked several people why they chose to work in agriculture. "I was a housewife before," said Iraida Rodríguez. "I earn 160 pesos a month now. I came to work to provide better conditions for my children and I don't mind the work."

Many workers were interested in Harris's campaign. "How do you fund your campaign?" one worker asked. "Supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign do," Harris replied. "We reach out to working people willing to listen and join in fighting the devastation caused by capitalism and we ask them for donations."

Everyone wanted to know if it was hard to campaign as a socialist candidate in the United States, and who you can appeal to. "There are many opportunities in the United States right now to do open political work under the banner of socialism," Harris said

He described recent demonstrations in Los Angeles and elsewhere to protest the cop beatings of immigrant workers and a march for women's rights in San Francisco that he participated in. "Among these fighters we seek and find many who are open to becoming part of an organization that can lead workers and farmers in the U.S. to emulate the Cuban revolution."

Harris's next visit was to the Antillana de Acero steel mill. The plant has 3,800 workers organized into 35 union locals. Due to lack of raw materials and spare parts, production in the factory has fallen. Since 1990 some 3,000 workers have been reallocated to other jobs.

Lázaro Altagocitia Rivero, the elected delegate to the CTC congress, said that no one has been thrown into the streets as what happens in capitalist countries. "If there is one thing the revolution has it's solidarity," he said.

Harris asked how the people are chosen to be moved to different jobs. "The decisions are made by a commission composed of the CTC, the administration and two of the plant's best workers. This is done in each department," he said. "This is a very clean process and we've gotten no complaints on how it's done, although we can't say that all has gone smoothly with those workers who loved their jobs and were moved."

"It's too bad more workers in the United States couldn't see this. I will use my campaign to tell them about it," Harris said.

"You've got a mammoth task in the United States having a relatively small group of communists to work with," one of the workers in the mill commented.

Harris smiled and said, "In Cuba, there weren't many communists either before 1959. It started small, but the conditions people faced drove them to struggle and a mass movement that eventually overthrew Batista was built."

Harris went on to visit the University of Havana where he was shown around the campus by leaders of the Federation of University Students. Several law students accompanied him on the tour. They had with them a petition demanding the immediate release of Pennsylvania death-row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal. They had already collected 1,000 signatures and were looking to get more. A number of students got very interested in the story of Mark Curtis, a U.S. unionist who framed-up by the police while he was involved in a fight to defend immigrant coworkers at a meatpacking plant in Des Moines, Iowa.

Later that evening Juan Duflars Amel, a reporter for Trabajadores, the weekly newspaper of the CTC, interviewed Harris about his election campaign.  
 
 
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