Vol. 77/No. 11      March 25, 2013

Together with 70 other workers, Nestre had just heard remarks by three socialists from the U.S., Mary-Alice Waters, Róger Calero and Martín Koppel.

Along with socialist workers and young socialists from Canada and the United Kingdom—all of them volunteers at the Pathfinder Press stand at the Havana International Book Fair—they had been invited to the plant by the Union of Young Communists (UJC) of Cuba to exchange experiences and discuss some of the Pathfinder books featured at the fair.

Plant director Marisel Torres welcomed the guests Feb. 25, recalling that in May 2001 Militant reporters had attended a workers assembly at the factory. The plant is in Regla, an industrial district on the east side of Havana Bay. The more than 1,000 workers produce seafood and poultry products, some for export and the rest for consumption in Cuba, including fish croquettes that are very popular here. Nearly half the workers are women and a high percentage are young.

They listened with interest as Waters replied to Nestre’s question, describing the wide-ranging discussions Socialist Workers Party members have with fellow workers, all of whom face the spreading capitalist economic contraction and its social consequences. Many were surprised by the considerable space that exists in the U.S. to carry out communist political activity.

Prodal workers responded to questions from their guests, as well. The visitors, several of whom had worked in meatpacking and food-processing factories themselves, wanted to learn how job conditions compared to those they have faced in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. One fact above all left an impression. When asked how many work-related accidents production workers had suffered in the last year, they could think of only two, one of which was a traffic accident on the way to work!

Calero, Koppel and Waters opened the exchange at Prodal by introducing two recent Pathfinder books: Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own, and The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free. They described the interest in these books among fellow workers in the U.S. who are engaged in struggles to defend our interests against assaults by the employers and their government.

Workers asked about the fight to free the five Cuban revolutionaries framed and imprisoned by the U.S. government. “Fighting for the freedom of our five Cuban comrades is also fighting for ourselves,” Waters said. The five, she noted, are on the front lines of the class struggle in the U.S., setting an example of dignity and integrity that working people respect and identify with as they learn about them.

Following the exchange, informal discussion continued for half an hour as workers bought copies of the featured titles and other books, as well as issues of the Militant. A number of Pathfinder titles were donated to the plant’s library.
 
 
Related articles:
NY forum: The Cuban Revolution transformed society top to bottom
‘To be a revolutionary doctor, you must make a revolution’
U.S. gov’t bars Cuban diplomats’ visits to René González
Who are the Cuban 5?
Write to Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio and Fernando
Students at Cuban medical school exchange views with socialist workers from US, UK, Canada, Australia
‘Women have taken part in every battle in Cuba’s revolutionary history’
Meetings in Havana and Santiago discuss books that help new generations of workers understand what a socialist revolution is
 
 
 
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