Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Who do Cuba's unions defend?
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/15/who-do-cubas-unions-defend
Comment: Sam Farber
======== WHO DO CUBA'S UNIONS DEFEND? ========================================
Sam Farber, author of /Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical
Assessment/ [1], examines the role of trade unions in Cuba--and whether they
protect workers' interests.
May 15, 2012
IN THE 1930s, at the height of Stalinist terror in Russia, a miner called
Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, became famous--and infamous--for supposedly
having extracted 102 tons of coal in less than six hours, exceeding his quota
by a factor of 14.
Under the direction and thrust of the Communist Party of the USSR, and, of
course, with the support of the unions totally controlled by the government,
the Stakhanovite movement spread to all industries forcing the competition
for hyper production among workers.
Stakhanovism [2] left a very bitter memory in the political culture of the
USSR and Eastern Europe, analyzed and pictured in the unforgettable film /Man
of Marble/ [3] by the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda.
It was that quasi mythical figure of Stakhanov that came to mind when I read
the May Day speech and interview published in /Trabajadores/ (April 29, 2012)
with Salvador Valdés Mesa, general secretary of the Confederation of Cuban
Workers and member of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party.
In fact, Valdés Mesa sounded a lot more like the Head of Personnel of the
Cuban state than a union leader, particularly when we consider that the
unions exist to defend the interests of the workers, even in a supposedly
socialist state.
Although in his interview Valdés Mesa mentioned, almost in passing, the
improvement of working conditions and consumer goods as a goal of his
Confederation, he did not even mention the subject in his May Day speech. It
is clear that the dominant theme in both pronouncements was his demand for
the Cuban workers to work harder and more productively.
A legitimate workers' leader would at least have asked for a salary increase
to protect the Cuban workers from the uninterrupted rise in the prices of
consumer goods. But Valdés Mesa did nothing of the sort.
Without ifs, ands or buts, he declared that there will be no salary increases
"while the country, with the measures that have been adopted, has not yet
reduced payrolls and eliminated undue subsidies and free goods that conspire
against an increase in the productivity of labor."
The union leader did not even demand an improvement in the notoriously
deficient transport system so that the workers could get to work on time,
thereby contributing to a rise in productivity.
Neither did he demand that the administrators share in the sacrifices of the
workers and that they also become productive. To be sure, the union leader
defended piecework rates (pay "according to results") rejecting the
well-established union principle that opposes pay by piecework in favor of
payment according to /time/ worked.
Valdés Mesa, as well as Raul Castro and other Cuban Communist leaders, are
invoking the "principle of socialist distribution" to justify piecework. The
"principle of socialist distribution" refers to pay according to work (in
contrast with the communist principle of distribution according to needs).
But pay according to work does not necessarily imply piecework. Compensation
according to work can easily and perfectly be established by counting the
hours, days, weeks or months that workers have labored.
It is obvious that in contrast with piecework, from the point of view of the
workers, compensation according to time worked constitutes an elementary
defense against super-exploitation by the bosses--in this case, the state
being the boss.
Besides, pay for time worked is more compatible with the development of
solidarity among workers, while piecework stimulates competition among them.
Can there be any doubt about which of those would be the choice in a
socialist economy and society truly controlled by the workers in contrast
with an employer state like the Cuban?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
VALDÉS MESA also rejects the right to seniority. Throughout the history of
capitalism, genuine unions have insisted in giving priority to the workers
that have worked longest not only to defend the older workers, for whom it
would obviously be more difficult to find a job, but also to protect all
workers from favoritism and the arbitrary behavior of supervisors and bosses.
But Valdés Mesa rejects seniority--and ignores any other measures that would
protect black workers and women--on behalf of "suitability," precisely the
criterion favored by big business in the capitalist countries when they lay
off workers.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, where I live, has
undertaken a big campaign to layoff public school teachers without regard to
seniority, supposedly to retain only the "suitable" teachers. But the real
agenda behind this policy is to attack the teachers' union and weaken the
solidarity among its members.
And how is "suitability" to be determined in Cuba? As decided in 2010, this
will be the task of a "Committee of Experts" elected, by a show of hands, in
general workers' assemblies, before which a slate of candidates jointly
elaborated by the enterprise management and the official union will be
submitted.
For anyone aware of the political situation in Cuba, it is obvious that those
elections will be purely cosmetic. It is worth noting that the government has
excluded from the jurisdiction of the Committee of Experts any decision
affecting administrators and political cadres and leaders. The work status of
those people will be decided by the institutions and authorities that
appointed or elected them.
It is evident that not too many Cuban workers see their official unions as
genuine unions and as a "suitable" instrument for the defense of their
interests, whether inside or outside their workplaces. Valdés Mesa
implicitly recognizes this when he admits, in the interview published in
/Trabajadores/, that "there are workers who do not believe in the union."
It is understandable that, for this and other reasons, the general secretary
of the official central union is worried about the Confederation having the
"capacity to be a protagonist in the updating of the economic model."
That is why the official workers' confederation has organized the newly
self-employed people; the union leaders already claim that they have
recruited the great majority of these.
Although we do not yet know for sure what the Confederation is planning to do
with the self-employed Cubans (and quite apart from the fact that only a
minority of these are workers and that the great majority are proprietors,
although of small businesses) is there any doubt that the main impulse behind
this is to control the self-employed, just as in the case of the state
workers?
It is very clear that the official workers' confederation and its affiliate
unions are not authentic unions but representatives and allies of the
employer state.
It is also clear that never before has an independent union movement been as
necessary as in the present transition towards a new exploitation model that
will likely lead to numerous protests by workers and peasants as has happened
in China.
What will the nascent independent left in Cuba do in regard to such an
important matter?
/First published in the/ Havana Times [4].
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[1] http://socialistworker.org/www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Cuba-Since-the-Revolution-of-1959
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Marble
[4] http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=69480
