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No Real Union Confederation in Cuba

May 18th, 2010 , By admin

Find Under Focus on Cuba

from Cuba Facts*

There is only one labor union confederation in Cuba. It is the Cuban Workers Confederation (CTC), organized and controlled by the Cuban government. All workers must be CTC members (even against their will), and they must pay contributions to the CTC.

The CTC, however, is a union in name only. In reality, it is a tool of the government. Here’s why:

“Union” elections are held periodically, but only candidates selected and approved by the Communist Party can run for office. Neither labor collective bargaining nor individual bargaining exists in Cuba. Workers cannot change one employer for another without permission from the government.

The overwhelming majority of enterprises, business, commercial, agricultural and industrial, are property of the Cuban government and the majority of Cubans work for the State. All salaries are arbitrarily set by the State.

Workers are hired, disciplined and dismissed by the government.

Foreign companies operating businesses in Cuba must secure their work force from the Cuban government. They cannot on their own contract nor dismiss workers without the express approval of the government.

Foreign companies pay the Cuban government in strong foreign currency (for example, Canadian dollars, Euros). The government pays the salaries of the Cuban workers in Cuban pesos, which are valued at 1/20 of the foreign currency and the government pockets 90% of every dollar or euro it receives.

The government carefully selects all workers in the tourist industry or in any other industry that come in contact with foreigners. Workers of lighter-color skin, or those who are the most loyal to the revolution, are chosen to work in hotels, tourist complexes and other tourist destinations.

The Cuban regime issues contracts covering the services of doctors, painters, musicians, etc., to foreign governments, and to companies outside of Cuba. Usually, those Cuban workers reside six months in the foreign countries and they are paid in strong currency. However, employers deduct a 40% of their salaries and forward such monies to the totalitarian regime of Fidel and Raul Castro.

All labor arbitration must be effected in capricious and corrupted governmental offices, where the worker receives very little protection. There is not an independent judicial system on the island and all judges are named by the government and work for the government.

*Cuba Facts is a continuous series of brief documents containing data about themes various, including -but not limited to – political structure, health, economy, education, nutrition, labor, companies, foreign investments and demography, which is published and periodically updated by the staff of Project Regarding the Transition in Cuba.

CFTU Updates

  • The Passing of Bill Doherty

    Bill Doherty, 84, Executive Director of the American Institute for Free Labor Development, AFL-CIO

    William Charles “Bill” Doherty Jr., who led the AFL-CIO’s outreach to trade unions in Latin America for 35 years, died August 28 after a long battle with bone marrow cancer. He was 84.

    Born in Belleview, Ky., the oldest of nine children, Doherty was raised in the Washington, D.C. area where his father, William Charles Doherty Sr. was president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, and later the first U.S. ambassador to Jamaica. He graduated from St. Paul’s Catholic Academy High School, where he met his future wife, Jane Catherine Donovan, a Boston native.  He worked as a Capitol Hill police officer while completing his degree in philosophy at Catholic University of America, where he played defensive lineman for the football team. He also attended Georgetown University School of Linguistics and Georgetown Law School.

    Doherty’s life was defined by his Catholic faith (he spent a brief period of his life in the St. Charles Seminary, studying to be a priest) and his conviction that democratic trade unions held the key to freedom and prosperity around the world. His work with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Postal Telephone and Telegraph International (PTTI) and the AFL-CIO’s American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), took him to 129 countries over his career.

    After serving as an aerial photographer with the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, Doherty assisted in rebuilding the trade union movement in Germany, supporting the anti-Nazi, dissident labor leaders and nascent democratic trade union movement that is today known as the Confederation of German Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerteschaftsbund, DGB).  He served in Belgium, Europe and Latin America as an AFL-CIO representative to the PTTI, an international trade secretariat.

    When President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress was initiated in 1961 to support labor’s international role in nurturing democratic trade union movements abroad, Doherty was the logical choice to serve as AIFLD’s Director of Social Projects, and later as Executive Director.  He led the AIFLD under the direction of four AFL-CIO presidents, retiring in 1996.

    Survivors include his wife of 52 years, Jane Catherine Donovan, eight children and 25 grandchildren.

  • The CFTU Website

    Welcome to the CFTU website!

    We’ve designed it to keep you better informed about developments in the continuing struggle of workers everywhere to establish and maintain the right of Freedom of Association – the right to form and join unions of their own choosing, run by people they elect.

    The CFTU has been active in recent years in attempts to assist workers in Cuba struggling to assert that right – in the face of their government’s insistence that only one union, guided by the Communist Party, can represent them,  and against the background of continuing imprisonment and harassment of those who think otherwise.

    Cuba is not the only country in the world denying workers their rights.  Sadly the list is long – Burma, Vietnam, North Korea, China -  to cite a few.  But too many trade unionists in the free world are unwilling to speak out, apparently believing that somehow these regimes will transform themselves into democratic societies and that through contact with free world unions, the non-representative unions in those police states will remake themselves into legitimate unions. Such a belief flies in the face of 90 years of experience to the contrary.

    The recent hunger-strike death in a Cuban prison of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year old brick mason serving a 26-year sentence for his political activities, and the long hunger strike of  dissident journalist Guillermo Farinas, provide eloquent testimony to the determination of those heroes to see their country free and democratic and observant of all the rights of free people.

    Our committee believes that neither dictatorships nor their hand-maiden unions ever yield power willingly and that free trade unions must not be complicit in the denial of freedom of association to workers.  Rather, we believe that those who are joined in the struggle to assert workers’ rights in the face of dictators, those who risk imprisonment and harassment, need and deserve our moral and material support.  We hope you will join us in those struggles.

    Tom Donahue, CFTU Chair