In its annual survey of violations of trade union rights, the International Trade Union Confederation issued the following report about Cuba:
Background: Cuba saw a bad start to the year in the aftermath of the three hurricanes that struck the island in 2008, leaving damages estimated at 10 billion dollars. The government reduced subsidized food quotas in 2009, cut energy consumption and stopped its debt repayments. No change was seen, however, on the political and rights front. According to the majority of the analysts consulted, no substantial change was seen on the political scene, aside from the replacement of secondary figures such as Carlos Lage, the former vice president. The same applies to the civil and democratic rights situation.
Anti-union legislation: The regime continues to prohibit independent trade unions and the right to strike is simply not regulated by the legislation in Cuba. According to the government, the need to call strikes does not apply, as the official trade union organizations enjoy the guarantee that their demands will be heard by the authorities.
Right to form and register organizations declared illegal: A considerable number of trade union organizations have been declared illegal in Cuba and forced to remain dissident, violating the right to organize and take autonomous action.
Workers’ rights violations persist: On 10 June, the former political prisoner José Ramón Castillo denounced various trade union rights violations in Cuba to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Amnesty International had declared him a prisoner of conscience and he testified before this forum as a victim of repression in Cuba. He stated that Cuban workers’ right to self-determination is not respected on the island. Workers do not have the right to organize trade unions independent of the state and five Cubans are currently serving prison sentences for having tried to organize independent trade unions. This information has been widely documented by the relevant international institutions.
Independent trade unionists in prison: In July, five independent trade unionists were still being held in prison, having been arrested during the wave of repression in March 2003 and condemned to long prison sentences in summary trials. They are Nelson Molinet Espino, General Secretary of the democratic workers’ confederation, Confederación de Trabajadores Democráticos de Cuba (CTDC); Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, an independent journalist and deputy director of the national labour and trade union training centre, Centro Nacional de Capacitación Sindical y Laboral; Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, leader of the united council of Cuban workers’, Consejo Unitario de Trabajadores de Cuba (CUTC); Iván Hernández Carrillo, member of the national executive of the independent workers’ confederation, CONIC; and Héctor Raúl Valle, a member of democratic workers’ confederation, CTDC.*
Trade unionists arrested: On 4 August, María Elena Mir Marrero, General Secretary of the independent workers’ confederation, Confederación Obrera Nacional Independiente de Cuba (CONIC), and activists Justo J. Sánchez, Hanoi Oliva and Daniel Sabatier, were questioned at the headquarters of the national revolutionary police, PNR, over their participation in a march on 13 July, at which they gave interviews for the documentary “Bajo el cielo cubano: el trabajador y sus derechos” (Under the Cuban Sky: Workers and their Rights).
* Editor’s Note: Since 2003, at least five additional advocates for free trade unionism in Cuba have been imprisoned: Horacio Pina Borrego, provincial CUTC delegate from the Sandino Municipality and member of the Pinar del Rio Secretariat, sentenced to 20 years; Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, member of the Executive Secretariat, provincial delegation of Pinar del Rio, sentenced to 26 years; Adolfo Fernandez Saínz, member of the Executive Secretariat, province Ciudad de la Habana, sentenced to 15 years; Luis Milán Fernández, delegate of CUTC in Santiago de Cuba province, sentenced to 13 years, and Blas Girardo Reyes Rodríguez, CUTC Delegate, Sancti Spiritus province, sentenced to 25 years.