BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CUBAN LABOR MOVEMENT
&
SOCIAL POLICY SINCE 1952
[GENTE DE LA SEMANA, Vol. 1, Havana, January 5, 1958, No. 1, American Edition]
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CUBAN LABOR MOVEMENT
SOCIAL POLICY SINCE 1952
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PHOTO CAPTION - Eusebio Mujal, top leader of Cuban's Labor movement reads workers claims in an assembly.
In the photo: Labor Minister Suarez Rivas, and U.S. Embassy Labor
Attache.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CUBAN LABOR MOVEMENT
August 12, 1933, the day that the dictatorial regime of president
Gerardo Machado was overthrown, is a decisive date in Cuba's labor
movement. Prior to that time social gains had been small and the
labor movement was limited. After that, the labor picture became
brighter.
Until that historic day 24 years ago, the few legal labor organizations
were reformist in character and almost all of them were forced to
conform to government regulations in order to survive. Only in
the darkness secrecy did the classisist and revolutionary labor groups
make their initial appearance.
After this date, the Secretariat of Labor (today known as the Labor
Ministry) came into being, a limit on the number of working hours was
enforced, legislation was passed for the establishment of labor and
management groups, the protection of the worker was guaranteed and the
old law requiring payment of salaries in cash was reenacted.
The political-revolutionary strike of March, 1935, opened the door for
repressive measures features by the banning of labor unions. But
the seed of struggle and progress and the fruit of social advancement
had become a part of the Cuban coincience and a short while later the
legalized unions again took their rightful place on the nation's
political, social and economic scene.
THE CUBAN WORKERS CONFEDERATION (CTC)
The Cuban Workers Confederation (CTC) is the only central union now in
existence in Cuba. It is remarkably strong and is characterized
by a keen sense of responsibility and the high respect with which it is
regarded both inside and outside the country. The CTC was created
in January of 1939 after Cuban labor delegates of varying ideological
groups had agreed months before at an international labor congress in
Mexico to unify the nation's labor movement.
(Prior to the CTC was another central union, the National Workers' Confederation of Cuba (CNOC), which
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ADVERTISEMENT Regalias El Cuno
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PHOTO CAPTION - Workers of Unions demostrates on C.T.C. rally.
was founded in 1925 b y anarchistic labor leaders and which worked underground until 1935).
The CTC was officially recognized in 1943 by presidential decree signed
b y then President of Cuba, Gen Fulgencio Batista Zaldivar, on April
7. At that time it consisted of nine national industries
federations made up of a few hundreds unions. Today it consists
of 33 federations with a membership of 1522 unions composed of
1,214,271 workers.
From 1939 to 1947, the CTC was influenced notably by Communist union
leaders, despite the fact that the Reds were a minority. In 1947,
however, at the historic fth CTC Congress, the Communists were expelled
and have since been under constant union attack. The principal
Communist labor leader was Lazaro Pena Gonzalez, today living outside
the country and without an appreciable following among the Cuban
citizenry.
The international labor groups of which the CTC is an affiliate also
have strongly anti-Communist records, among them being the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the
Regional Interamerican Workers Organization (ORIT).
THE COMMUNIST PROBLEM
The Cuban Communist Party was founded secretly in 1925. It was legalized in 1938, and in 1953 was outlawed.
Before 1933 it had very few members. After the revolutionary
upheavels of that year and following its old tactic of hiding behind
popular mass movements, it started to grow, gaining strength by heading
all drives for social and labor improvements. These improvements
were later incorporated into the new 1940 Constitution and in labor
legislation passed since that date.
In its period of greatest strength, Communism in Cuba controlled one
newspaper, "Noticias de Hoy", and a radio station, "Mil Diez", as well
as assemblies in 126 municipalities of the Republic. It was also
robust enough to elect senators and representatives and win two mayoral
posts (Yaguajay and Manzanillo) as well as numerous councilman's
posts. Its maximum voting strength through out Cuba at one time
reached 152,000 voters.
From the foundation of the CTC in 1939 to the middle of 1947, the
Communist leaders controlled the national labor movement. But its
ambitions, schisms and dictatorial techniques lead to a mass rebellion
in that year, in which the Communist hierarchy was expelled from the
CTC and labor leaders of national and democratic ideals elevated to
take their places.
Today the Communists have gone underground, their strength
decimated. But they lose no opportunity to try to infiltrate and
agitate te nation's working class, its students and its intellectuals.
CUBA'S SOCIAL ADVANCES
Chapter Four of the Cuban Constitution recognizes "the inalienable
right of the individual to work" and that the state will use all
resources within its power to provide work for those without it".
In this way the Cuban Magna Carta guarantees the salary, or the minimum wage as regulated periodically
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PHOTO CAPTION - Vicente Rubiera, Telephone Worker's leader.
PHOTO CAPTION - Eusebio Mujal Barniol, Secretary General of Cuban C.T.C. addressing a meeting.
by management-labor groups; the sanctity of the minimum wage; the equal
salary for equal work; the invalidity of payment by voucher, chits,
merchandise or any other monetary substitute; payment of labor by the
week; social security to provide for layoffs, old age, etc.; an
eight-hour maximum work day and a 44-hour work week for 48 hours pay,
and the illegality of child labor under 14 years.
All established by the Cuban Constitution is payment of one month's
vacation for 11 months work in a year's period; the payment of salary
for holidays or national days of mourning; the rights of working
mothers; the free organization of final dissolution of labor unions
until a definite decision on each individual case has been handled down
by the courts; the regulation and fulfillment of collective work
contracts and the preponderant participation of the native Cuban in
employment an salary scales.
Discrimination of all types is prohibited; the creation of cooperatives
is favored, and no one may be fired from a job without the prior notice
provided by law.
The obligation of the state to provide low cost housing for workers has
been fixed constitutionally, as have the conditions which must be
observed by all shops, factories and other work centers, te lending of
social aid and charity to poor families, as well as the regulation of
the transfer of factories and shops to avoid the payment of salaries
and work levels. Also employer-worker commissions have been
established to help solve labor disputes.
Furthermore all Cubans, whether they be workers or not, have the free
right of assembly and movement, free expression of thought and respect
for their home and correspondence, etc.
All these rights are respected in the present day except during those
periods (as specified in the Constitution) when constitutional
guarantees are suspended. Also respected is the worker's right to
strike and the employers' right to work stoppages.
A word about strikes: since 1952 until the present time, the CTC has
organized, directed and won several strike movements. Among these
have been the strike for the payment of "differential" pay (for sugar
workers) in late 1955, the strike on the Ferrocarriles Consolidados,
the Hatuey Brewery strike in Cotorro (Havana), as well as tobacco,
port, textile and transport strikes. In all, the CTC has directed
over 100 strikes in the past five years, all of which have been
approved by the majority of votes or by unanimous agreement of the
responsible parties.
There have been violent strikes, resulting in the intervention of the
authorities. In the bank strike of September 1955 and the
electric strike of May 1957, both declared illegal by the government
and subsequently quelled by the authorities, it should be noted that
both unions involved rejected the strike movement. In the bank
strike the vote was 14 against a work stoppage and three in favor in
the National Bank Workers Federation of Cuba, and 62 opposed and one in
favor in the CTC. The union directors who disobeyed the agreement
and initiated the strike were cited for insubordination to union
authority and punished by the CTC through regular union channels.
The same happened in the case of the electric strike.
The first international strike, in which Cuban workers, represented by
the CTC, showed their solidarity with American workers, represented by
the AFL and the CIO, should not go unnoticed here. It was an
outstanding success. It occurred in 1955 when Cuban workers
refused to load crude sugar in Cayo Juan Claro (Puerto Padre) for sugar
refineries in the southern U.S. on the grounds that the refinery owners
did not want to pay Southern Negroes the same salaries as those paid in
northern refineries. The Cubans refused to ship the raw sugar
until they were sure that their
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PHOTO CAPTION - Prisciliano Falcon Sanu, leader of Cuba's F.N.T.A., largest Cuban Union.
North American brothers had won their wage demands from the refinery bosses.
All along, the United States labor organization, the AFL-CIO, has
maintained and still maintains its close ties with Cuban labor, not
only to provide mutual support in the common fight against Communism
and for a higher standard of living for labor, but as in the case of
the CTC and FNTA leaders in 1955 when Cuba was seeking a sugar quota in
the U.S. market. On that occacion the U.S. labor chief-tans
greatly helped the Cuban labor group achieve its goal.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SUGAR LABOR
Sugar is Cuba's prime wealth. Exports of this commodity and its
sale abroad provide a larger percentage of the nation's income than any
other single commodity. The price per pound of sugar and the
volume of the sugar harvest are the two economic factors with the
greatest bearing on the nation's political, social and economic
situation.
Of the island's labor force, estimated at 2,059,659 persons in the 1953
census, the National Sugar Workers Federation (FNTA) has calculated
that more than 500,000 workers depend on the sugar industry for their
livelihood. For this reason, among others, it is called the
"leading industry" of Cuba.
In 1952, the revolutionary government of General Batista faced an
anarchic sugar harvest which produced over seven million tons of the
product, a record figure in Cuba. There were no markets in which
to sell it. The government, in order to avoid the imposition of
rigid controls the following year, set aside 1,752,000 tons for sale
over a five-year period. Before taking this stop, however, the
government consulted the Cuban labor movement in the form of the CTC
and the FNTA, as well as the sugar owners, the "hacendados" and
"colonos".
The labor movement of the sugar industry has been invited by the
government to participate –and has participated– in various
international sugar discussions with the United States and other
nations on the American Market and the World Sugar Agreement.
In regard to salaries, the Cuban workers sugar have achieved a wage
scale which fluctuates with world sugar prices. For instance, in
1953 and 1955, when sugar prices dropped on the world market, the
workers suffered two salary cuts which totally approximately 14
percent. It is curious to note that the Communists and political
groups which opposed the CTC termed the Cuban labor leaders "cowards"
for accepting these cuts. However, in 1957 when the national
labor movement demanded the restitution of the high salaries, due to
the high price of sugar at the time, the aforementioned critics refused
to recognize the union victory. This restoration of salary,
together with the increase in the sugar harvest for this year –from
4,600,000 tons to 5,500,000 tons– means an increase of more than $80
million in salaries for sugar workers over 1956.
The shipments of bulk sugar have been planned for some time in
Cuba. Mill owners wished to do it to cut down on workers'
salaries. But the CTC, the FNTA and the National Maritime
Workers' Federation (FOMN), in a hard-fought battle, succeeded in
changing the owners point of view and in securing a presidential
decree. –Decree number 738 of 1955– which authorized the shipments but
without effecting the number of workers at the mills. Another union
triumph was won with the conversion of mechanization into a friend, and
not an enemy, of the worker.
For many years, Cuba's sugar workers have worked to win representation
in the Cuban Sugar Stabilization Institute (ICEA), the official
regulating body for the industry managed and staffed by mill owners
(both "hacendados" and "colonos") and government representatives.
The workers' desires were finally realized this year, by official
decree and the leader of the FNTA, Prisciliano Falcon, today occupies a
place on the ICEA.
The Supreme Court has adjuged "super production" of sugar
(indemnification for mechanization) unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, by employer-worker agreement backed by the government, it
is still paid.
The sugar "differential" (indemnification at the end of the year if the
price of sugar rises in relation to the price at harvest time) has not
only been respected from 1952 to the present but in 1955, when such a
differential was not warrented, the government through various
financial maneuvers in the sale of sugar futures, permitted the
distribution of more than $10 million among the sugar workers as a
"prefabricated differential".
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PHOTO CAPTION - Cuba's CTC Palace. Here resides the HQ of all Cuban Unions.
SOCIAL POLICY SINCE 1952
Since the fall of the regime of Gerardo Machado in 1933, the salary
level and living conditions of the Cuban working man has been on the
rise. The revolution of March 10, 1952, reaffirmed these
"social conquests" the very day that it took over the nation and
offered to widen them. The result was that the CTC, which had
called a general strike to protest the revolutionary take-over,
canceled its strike and offered inmediate [immediate] cooperation with
the new government. From that movement onward the labor
organization has maintained respectful and harmonious relations with
the government in what has been a tacit "non-aggresion pact".
In the sugar industry alone, the most important in the nation, both the
top executives as well as the workers have recognized the policy of
President Batista during the five year period in which he has governed
the nation. Recognition of the President's policies and regime
was affirmed at the large banquet for the President in Havana's "Centro
Gallego" in November 1956, and in the visit to the Presidential Palace
after the congratulatory parade following the terrorist assault on the
palace on March 13 of this year. Other segments of the nation's
social and economic life have also granted their fullest backing to the
Batista program for social and economic welfare.
Workers enjoy full representation on the Consultative Board, the
legislative body created as a consequence of the Revolution of March
10, and help promote indemnification laws for their retirement funds
and create social security laws for the construction livestock and
leather industries, etc.
The obligatory union dues, the basis of the economic support of Cuba's
labor movement, were passed into law in 1955. This has given the
Cuban workers' movement its full independence, has resulted in the
creation of a modern publicity network of presses and radio and TV
stations, has helped form free international labor missions to work for
increases in salary levels and living standards in undeveloped
countries –through the CIOSL and ORIT– and the endowment of buildings,
furnishings, clinics, ambulances and other equipment to individual
unions.
Labor congresses and assemblies have been held in large numbers in
recent years. The CTC has received its share of praise and
complaints at these events, which have been attended y government
groups (Jose Perez Gonzalez, Julian Sotolongo, Andres Soberon, Mercedes
Chirino, etc.) And well-known opposition groups (Conrado Bequer,
Conrado Rodriguez, Rodrigo Lominchar, Pablo Balbuena, Angel Cofino,
Vicente Rubiera, Jorge Cruz, Antonio Morejon, Jose Lemus, Calixto
Sanchez, who died later in a revolutionary action, and others.
The workers' movement has gained both respect and respectability, as
well as the public recognition from President Batista, for the program
of political independence followed by the CTC. This is made
possible by the fact that
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PHOTO CAPTION - Jose Perez Gonzalez
PHOTO CAPTION - Mercedes Chirino
PHOTO CAPTION - Julian Sotolongo
some 70 percent of the workers have so requested at labor congresses and assemblies. The
remaining 30 percent still retains ideological ties with either the
government coalition parities or parites of the opposition on roughly
an equal 15 percent basis. The political independence of the 70
percent who do not form strong attachments to either political faction
is guided by the National Workers' Union (UNO) which is directed by the
present secretary general of the CTC, Eusebio Mujel Barniol, assisted
by Facundo Pomar Soler, Jesus Artigas Carbonel, Javier Bolanos, Sergio
Pons and others.
As a logical result of the respect accorded it by the government, the
CTC for its part recognizes and lauds the attitude of President Batista
in not interfering or trying to dominate the political independence
which has done so much to make the Cuban labor movement great. It
is interesting also to note that many of those who now make up
the leadership of the Nation Workers' Union were formerly members of
the parties which made up government prior to March 10, 1952.
Following the ascendence of the new regime, these labor leaders retired
from party politics to dedicate themselves exclusively to labor
activities.
All attempts by non-organized labor elements to stir up strikes have
failed because the rank and file has recognized them for what they are
– persons seaking [seeking] to further their own political aspirations
who are not in accord with the CTC policy of "keeping politics out of
union activity". In this matter the general strike called by
Fidel Castro Ruz, the insurgent hiding out in the Sierra Maestra,
failed. And in a similar manner the worker's strike called last
December by the University Students Federation (FEU) also failed.
Another attempt to tie up the nation which failed to materialize was
that called for August 5 by oppositionists and underground groups
organized by the Cuban Communist Party (the outlawed "Partido
Socialista Popular"). In all instances, the CTC has unmasked the
political motivations of these movements through its wide newspaper
coverage and has alerted its membership to their daughter.
Last August 12, the prime minister gathered all the main directors of
the industrial, commercial, banking and working groups in the
Presidential Palace to congratulate them for having refused aid to
their strike movement which had called upon "terrorists",
insurrectionalists and Communists" the week before. The strikes
had termed their action "a passport to chaos". The prime minister
emphasized in this talk with the industry and labor leaders that the
government was prepared to facilitate "guarantees and security" for
all, but in exchange for good sense on their part. The group
agreed unanimously to condemn the action of the strikers and align
themselves on the side of order, peace and national prosperity.
The outstanding labor leader present, Eusebio Mujal Barniol, secretary
general of the CTC, stated on that occasion that any attempt at
violence which tended to create anarchy in the country would men the
fall of the national economy, the scaring off of investors, the
tightening up and hiding of money and the loss of labor gains.
In this regard, the Cuban working class has stated through its congresses the following principles:
The peaceful solution of national problems.
The favoring of investments, domestic and foreign, to create new jobs for labor.
A fight without quarter against Communist infiltration.
Eradication of politics among unions.
Harmonic relations between the government capital and labor.
Repudiation of terrorism.
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Cuban Information Archives. All Rights Reserved.
