CHAPTER 20 By early 1970 the government had come to consider that the maximum use of the national labor force could make a major contribution to the solution of the country's economic problems. No other sector of the national culture has undergone such sweeping changes as those that have affected the status and utilization of labor. The government has increasingly devoted its energies to establishing labor as a dominant feature of national life, enhancing its dignity, and stressing the duty of every citizen to contribute his share in order to ensure the success of its goals. The government has met with some success, and no citizen can be unaware of the pervasive prominence of the labor theme. The approach to labor has been patterned along Communist lines, and every individual is expected to respond to the country's needs. The government can point to some concrete accomplishments, and government programs have benefited the worker, particularly at the lower end of the economic scale. The goal of full employment has been achieved, and the half million seasonal workers who in the past found only three or four months' employment during the sugar harvest, now have steady jobs with guaranteed annual wages. Whatever gains have accrued to the worker, however, have been at the cost of his freedom and individuality. Labor organizations are controlled by the Confederation of Revolutionary Cuban Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba RevolucionariosCTC-R), sometimes called the Central of Cuban Workers, a Communist-run federation of the country's labor unions. More concerned with promoting the progress of the party than the welfare of its members, it is a bureaucratic control mechanism rather than a representative labor organization. The worker has no voice in planning, standards of output, working conditions, wage scales, or labor discipline. One of the first acts of the new government in 1959 was to take over control of the country's labor unions. In the early flush of revolutionary enthusiasm it was able to place partisans of the 26th of July Movement in positions of leadership, and thus impose its will on the unions. Through nationalization of industry and agrarian reform, the government soon became the nation's principal employer and working through the CTC-R and the Ministry of Labor, was in a position to dictate the direction and policies of the labor movement. From the start, government policy in the area of labor relations was designed to promote four principal goals: reduction of unemployment; increase in production; nationalization of private enterprises; and indoctrination of workers in its aims. The government promptly began to neutralize the political importance of the unions and to reeducate the workers. A number of labor disputes that developed early in the new regime were summarily dealt with, always along government-dictated lines; the emphasis was on increased productivity rather than increased wages and on voluntary unpaid overtime rather than shorter hours. Over the years the trend to increasingly stringent government controls continued. By early 1970 production norms were being set by government decree, as were working conditions and wage scales. Individual unions continued to exist but were subordinate to the CTC-R, which made all major policy decisions, subject to the approval of the Ministry of Labor. Disputes had to be submitted to a ministry-appointed coordinator, and issues of any significance usually were forwarded to Havana for resolution. The labor movement evolved into an organ of revolutionary indoctrination, the labor organizations becoming government instruments for exhorting workers to greater productivity and for discouraging demands for increased compensation. Many unions appeared to have no function other than propaganda, urging the worker to build up the country's socialist society through austere adherence to the Marxist line. The government has made significant progress toward achieving one of its principal aims, the creation of an egalitarian socialist society. Despite government manipulation of the labor movement to its own ends, the worker has benefited in some areas. Although he must work as much as, if not more than previously, he has relative job security, and his pay is adequate, although wage scales have not increased in absolute terms. There is a marked degree of economic equality, and the gap between upper and lower extremes of compensation has been narrowed to the point where no man need feel economically inferior. A cabinet minister's salary of 500 Cuban pesos a month (1 Cuban peso equals US$1-see Glossary) is about five times the 85 Cuban pesos to 125 Cuban pesos a month earned by an unskilled laborer in the countryside. The income gap in purchasing potential at different socioeconomic levels has been closed even more dramatically. Many households have two or three wage earners and, with a variety of services such as education, housing, or medical care virtually free, the average worker often finds himself with a surplus of funds. Food is rationed in limited quantities, and many consumer goods items are scarce or nonexistent. A worker can often spend his money on unaccustomed luxuries, such as an expensive restaurant meal or a vacation at a luxurious resort hotel. Fidel Castro has called his regime a government of the labor and peasant classes, and many workers have come to believe it. ORGANIZED LABOR AS A POLITICAL FACTOR Organized labor has rarely been independent of government pressures or control. Since the time the first unions were formed in 1889, most labor organizations accommodated to the governments in power, wheras these, in turn, came to terms with labor. It was usually possible to arrive at mutually beneficial arrangements, the government granting favors to the unions in exchange for industrial peace and cooperation with the political powers. Complete control, however, was usually conditioned by two factors. First, the unions were usually not unified or cohesive and were themselves a battleground for contending political groups, with a handful of labor leaders having enough strength to be in a position to bargain for claims on their support. Second, many close personal relationships existed between union leaders and officials of the government, which often enabled labor leaders to press for concessions based on shared interests. The authoritarian nature of the Castro regime has enabled it to impose a more effective control over labor than had any other government in the past. This was accomplished not only by political maneuvering and pressures on independent labor leaders but also in part by the capitulation of labor itself. Responding to Castro's charisma, the rank and file of workers were willing to entrust their welfare to him. As a result, the unions virtually lost their identities and strength and became impotent. The country's first labor organizations, formed in 1889 under Spanish rule, were unions of tobacco workers and longshoremen in Havana. They were headed by Spanish anarcho-syndicalists, who distrusted political activity and favored direct action with employers. Their ideas continued to influence the labor movement for many years after their leadership was undermined by President Gerardo Machado in the 1920s. Thereafter, control passed increasingly into the hands of Communists. Unlike the early leaders, these men brought the labor movement into close association with political events. The country's unions grew rapidly in size and scope and by the 1930s included virtually the entire labor force. They ranged from advanced industrial unions to small craft guilds; until 1933, however, they were disunited and marked by internal dissension. The 1933 general strike, which contributed to the overthrow of Machado, was the first instance of unified action on the part of labor, and the success of the strike's organized thrust led to the formation of the Nation Labor Confederation of Cuba (Confederación Nacional Obrera de Cuba-CNOC). Although the leadership was primarily Communist, the CNOC united a group of forces of widely divergent political persuasion, from far right to extreme left. For the most part the older craft and artisan organizations stood on the conservative right. These included some of the unions of railroad, tobacco, and construction workers, as well as retail clerks. On the left were most of the mass membership unions, among which were the sugar, textile, and transportation workers. Between the two polar groups was a variety of unions of different shades of political coloring that cut across particular occupations and constantly shifted their allegiances. The general strike of 1933 was the first in a number of labor disruptions that took place throughout the succeeding two years. This period of unrest spurred the government to test its ability to control the unions, and the government emerged victorious from the confrontation. The more radical aspects of organized labor were checked; union leaders were arrested; and the CNOC was dissolved. Between 1935 and 1938 the labor movement was without the direction of a national federation. The unrest of the times induced government and labor to seek compromise solutions to their differences, instead of the pressures or force that usually proved inimical to both sides. In late 1937 Fulgencio Batista reached an agreement with Communist labor leaders whereby they were given a free hand in the reorganization of the labor movement in exchange for their political support. It was decided to found a new national federation, and, in January 1939, the Confederation of Cuban Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba-CTC) was established. The new organization included unions led by independent and Party of the Cuban Revolution (Auténtico) leaders, but control at the top once again rested in Communist hands. The CTC continued to be active over the years, surviving a number of vicissitudes and changes in political climate. Communist leadership came and went, depending on the attitudes of the governments in power. After a period of uneasy truce, the Auténtico party wrested leadership away from the Communists in 1947. The leftist elements broke off from the parent group and formed their own CTC but, faced by strong government opposition, their strength declined rapidly. The Communist CTC continued a covert and ineffectual existence until 1951 when, for strategic reasons, it was ordered by its upper echelons to affiliate with the official government CTC. The official CTC was still the country's major labor federation when Castro came to power, although it had experienced a turbu lent period of ferment and unrest during the years preceding the Revolution of 1959. Castro found the CTC useful, and it has continued in operation during the ten years of his regime. In early 1970 it was, however, a far different organization from its original concept. The old-line Communist leaders had been replaced by handpicked young revolutionaries loyal to Castro, and the designation of "revolutionary" had been added to its title; the structure was reorganized so that all unions were subordinate to the federation; and instead of functioning as a traditional labor organization, the CTC had become merely the centralized instrument of Communist Party control. LABOR FORCE Cuban labor has always been primarily a wage-earning force. Even in agriculture the vast majority of workers were wage earners who were employees with no ties to the soil or to any specific locality. The basic pattern of the labor force has not changed drastically since 1959. Castro's early efforts to industrialize the country's economy were abandoned soon after the early indication of failure, and his plans were not sufficiently advanced to have effected any significant changes in the composition or character of the working population (see ch. 19, Industry). There have, of course, been some changes. Greater emphasis has been placed on working women, and some increases in feminine employment have resulted. There has been a degree of decentralization, and agricultural labor is somewhat more diffused throughout rural areas. The sizable military establishment, through its civic action programs, has become a contributing labor factor, and many workers not usually associated with manual labor have joined the agricultural labor force, at least for a time, in response to government pressures attendant on harvesting the sugar crop (see ch. 25, The Armed Forces). Cuba's last officially announced census, taken in 1953, showed the total labor force to be approximately 2.1 million. In 1960 the Ministry of Labor released the results of an informal labor census, which indicated a total numbering 2.3 million. In early 1970 the force was estimated at between 1.9 million and 2.4 million, with more informed opinion leaning to the larger figure. Estimates were based largely on casual observations by periodic visitors the government was no longer publishing any data or statistics on labor practices or conditions, and there was little official information reaching the outside world. Agricultural Labor Before the Revolution, government statistics indicated an agricultural labor force of some 807,000, representing 38.5 percent of the |