By: Betty Beaton
Workers- Santiago de Cuba workers are involved in revising union collective agreements: internal regulations, appointed positions, economy plans, undivided profits, and payment systems are among the aspects to be checked in the agreements between the union and management, during the trade union meetings.
Workers- At such meetings, management should present the current annual budget for debate, an atypical period in unique circumstances: the COVID-19 pandemic, the endless intensification of the US blockade and the implementation of the new monetary ordering; definitely a new and very complex scenario.
Efficiency is now a particularly key element in Cuban economy in the business sector for the new monetary ordering, according to Ulises Guilarte, politburo member and secretary general of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC in Spanish), during his visit to different local entities.
The Economy Restructuring Process in Santiago de Cuba
Workers- The top union leader acknowledged that during the first days of the implementation of the new socioeconomic measures there was discontent on the workers’ side. It imposes a systematic collective assessment in the search of solutions.
He said they have received so far opinions that criticize the behavior of management and trade union organizations, mostly associated to payment systems, loss of purchasing power due to strong prices and poor supply and offer. Others relate to prices for workers’ canteens, transportation and corporate uniforms.
Mr. Guilarte demanded from trade union leaders to assume their role before management in exposing the arguments of the new monetary ordering, for they all have the necessary juridical norms to support every procedure.
The mountain Guama municipality in the Santiago de Cuba province is rich in forestry reserves, with cedar, mahogany and others like pine, which is basically used in both home and industrial Guama Forestry Workers March Forwardcarpentry and construction.
He also admitted that some people express their opinions without taking into consideration the necessary integration of the concepts salary, cost and price. It requires that workers update and upgrade their juridical and economical culture.
Currently trade union organizations have a new opportunity for talking to workers in these 2021 annual budget analyses. Such analyses should be rigorously prepared to avoid formal discussions and statements from those who conduct the meetings.
In the first place we should mobilize the potential that propitiate a better autonomy for the socialist enterprise and to improve work in the private sector.
The CTC leader expressed, “We must identify what and how to export; to find new financial sources to guarantee liquidity; how to get the best from the installed machinery through productive linking and service diversification. Undivided profits and their use should also be explained to workers.”
The impact of monetary re-ordering in agriculture
Eventually, he added that we can improve workers’ income amidst a social justice climate, without egalitarianism, in which he who works more earns more. In this dynamic process the Government will have answers for all opinions, as President Miguel Diaz-Canel has stated in his visits to each province.
Message from Lazaro Exposito, First Secretary of the Party in Santiago de Cuba Province
Brothers and sisters:
Today we resist an invisible enemy to the eyes, but relentless with life, the emotional, family and economic stability of all of us who live in this land of warriors, where sacrifice has never restrained the spirit of victory.
Mensaje de Lázaro Expósito e indicaciones del Consejo de Defensa Provincial Santiago, 2021
This enemy, as hostile as the best armed of armies, has already taken lives and will not hesitate to continue taking them if we do not base our philosophy of struggle to win on self-care, unity, discipline and sincerity, so that we can return to the streets, classrooms, workplaces, parks and hugs as soon as possible.
In this battle, the careless, the skeptical, the undisciplined, those who give priority to money and the momentary pleasure of continuing to act regardless of the efforts of many, will be victims of that enemy known as Covid-19. However, there is a way to fight it and beat it successfully without another family suffering isolation and the pain of loss: it is by transforming the battlefield in our favor, turning every measure and every indication into a lethal weapon against the new coronavirus.
I call on you to join our health staff in the front line, to fulfill and observe the materialization of tasks such as:
