Life in a Cuban microry hour. "You know me," he says, pointing at the viewers. General
Hugo Banzer, the former dictator, is spending huge sums of money to win the May 7 presidential election in Bolivia.
Of course, Bolivia knows him. General
Banzer, the bloodthirsty dictator who tried to crush the trade-union movement, failed and was overthrown. The general did not THE AUTHORS of the following article, from the Danish fail in everything. Even today, he casts a Fourth Internationalist paper Klassekampen, recently shadow over Bolivian economic policy. It was Banzer who introduced the "open-door spent two months in Cuba. During their visit, they worked economy," which continues to prevail in in one of the "micro-brigades," a new form of labor the country.
Today, Bolivia is a brilliant example of organization devised by the Castro leadership as a the new free-enterpriseism so extolled by collectivist response to the economic crisis that has hit
Western economists.
"I have never seen
Bolivia so poor as it is now," said the country's 89-year-old cardinal. Jose Clemente
Maurer, in an interview with the daily Pre-
KAREN SKYTTE ANDERSEN & LARS HALSKOV sencia.
Tania Rodriguez, a Bolivian woman who recently returned to her homeland after eight years' exile in Sweden, reports that she got a bit of a shock when she arrived.
"It was so much worse than before, such glaring poverty, so many beggars on the street."
General Banzer's greatest "achievement"
is Bolivia's enormous foreign debt. Under his dictatorship from 1971 to 1978, the debt rose from $782 million to $3,102 milthinks that few countries have so bad
International Viewpoint #162 • May 1, 1989 the country.
A T A TIME when we are fighting
for a shorter workweek, Cuban building workers are mostly working 10 to 12 hours a day, and unemployment is almost unknown. The demand for building is quite strong in Cuba, and since construction was only made a priority in the 1980s the shortage of housing is striking.
At the same time, the country needs general economic development. Since the revolution in 1959 the living standards of the population have improved considerably as a result of a well-developed health and educational system, among other things. But Cuba is still an underdeveloped country; its imports of a few products determine whether or not it can import essential goods.
At the moment, Cuba is going through the worst crisis it has ever experienced as a result of a shortage of hard currency, and
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brigade
therefore the leadership in the Communist Party is looking to a great extent to tourism as a springboard for the economy. At the same time, Cuba is still suffering from the US economic blockade. That means, for example, that lumber for construction has to be transported all the way from the Soviet Union or Angola.
Limited resources and poor organization mean low productivity in the building industry, in which there are often shortages of raw materials, tools and machinery. On a site where we worked, the workers had no lumber for three days, because there were no trucks to transport it.
Unfortunately, the lack of resources and strict priorities are often used as excuses for not improving things, for not organizing the work better and not improving conclothes, safety gear, social security, to guarantee that wages are paid, and so on."
The building workers' union has 302,000 members. It includes everyone who works in the industry, from carpenters and bricklayers to architects, engineers and foremen, and the cooks who provide food for
There are no labor contracts in Cuba. Wages, working hours and safety conditions are set by law. What has been laid down can, however, be changed locally, if certain situations require that. For example, officially the working day is eight hours, but we met no building worker who worked "so few hours."
On the other hand, the average wage for building workers is 205 pesos a month [about $200], slightly over the general
CUBA wages without productivity."
Production in the building industry is especially important now when there is a great need for housing for the people but when, at the same time, economic considerations mean that building hotels, airports and similar facilities for the tourist sector gets the highest priority. Therefore, the building industry is organized in a very
The biggest building projects - which at the moment are first and foremost in the tourist sector — are being carried out by so-called contingents and brigades, which consist of skilled building workers. They are also building hospitals, roads and big
However, many projects for building homes, nursery schools and family clinics ditions. There are no private firms in
CUBA!
CUBA it can prioritize
But, at the same time, the country is a one-party system in which, according to the official ideology, different interthe workers has to be subordinated point of society, foremost right and duty is to defend
"In our society, the party is the leader. Administraorganization follow
There are no differences with the Communist Party or its youth organization," the building workers' retary, Argelio Suarez, told us.
That also means that the unions have a different role than the one we are familiar with in Denmark. The unions' most important task is to help to organize production, along with defending the workers' inter-
Argelio Suarez said: "The unions' role is a dual one. On the one hand, it is to work politically to convince the workers, to prepare and educate them to meet the production plans. On the other hand, we have to make sure that the state administration creates the necessary conditions so that the workers can meet the plan, to ensure that there are raw materials, tools, work average of 193 pesos. In Cuba, families' fixed expenses are often low. Generally around 10% of their income goes for rent, and 1% for union dues. Basic foods are rationed, and they do not require a big direct outlay. But our impression was that in order to eat adequately, a family has to buy some food outside the rationing system, and there prices are very high.
The supply of goods itself is often unstable, so that it can be hard to buy things you want, even if you have the money.
On wages, Argelio Suarez said: "For us, it is important that there be a relationship between increases in productivity and increases in wages. When you have a planned economy under socialism, it relies on the principle that workers get back what they give to the society. You can't have are being carried out by the microconsist of workers from other occupations who, because of the labor shortage, do voluntary work in the building industry for some years.
Even though it is very difficult to get official figures on the building industry, it is quite clear that the tourist sector is continuing to get the highest priority, not only with regard to skilled labor power but also as regards raw
This is a serious situation in a coun try with a big housing shortage. At economically risky.
on which it is dangerous to base a coun try's economy.
"They criticize and punish their own because they do not tolerate laziness and absenteeism or lateness. It is astonishing.
There is really no absenteeism in the contingents, and the workers oversee discipline. The contingents are based on a feeling of responsibility for the job."
This statement by Cuba's leader, Fidel
Castro, expresses very clearly the function of the building contingents in Cuban society. They are supposed to be in the forefront of production.
The first contingent was formed in 1987, as one of the answers to the economic crisis. At the moment, there are 10,000-
15,000 building workers in these contingents, and the number is growing rapidly.
CUBA Each contingent consists of 100-400 workers, depending on the size of the project. We encountered contingents in which the workers were hired for three-year contracts and lived in special settlements near where they worked. For example, 4,450 building workers are living and working at the moment in the popular beach town of Varadero. They come from all over Cuba and live in four barracks complexes.
Construction of tourist developments
Varadero is a high-priority tourist zone where today there are 2,500 rooms for tourists. According to the plan, it is to be greatly expanded. With restoration and new construction of hotels, there are to be 30,000 rooms for tourists by the year 2,000. This is a very ambitious plan, which requires a great deal of labor.
The contingents set working hours collectively — often deciding on 12 hours a day. It is not unusual for workers to work all seven days of the week, especially if a building has to be finished. About this, Argelio Suarez said: "We make sure that those who work 10, 12 and 14 hours a day get special attention. For example, they get regular medical examinations, better food and better housing to compensate for their
"This system has been much discussed. Internationally workers are struggling for shorter working hours, and at the same time we are asking them to work more. But this is not the law, it is not compulsory. It comes from the people's hearts, and from the conviction that there is a need to
In Cuba we often heard that it is hard to find young people to work in the building industry because it is too hard. It was also our impression that such long working hours reduce real efficiency, especially in a country where the temperatures often go
The contingents include women, but 12 very few of them are manual workers. Recently, the Cuban Women's Federation (FMC) has formed a women-only contingent. It is building houses in old Havana, and at the same time training people as bricklayers, carpenters and There are also some women in the micro-
The micro-brigades are a special Cuban invention. They were set up in 1971 in an attempt to meet the population's demand for housing. They were given a lower priority for a long period, but got a big boost after 1986 as a result of the economic crisis. The micro-brigades make it possible not only to build more housing but also more nursery schools and family clinics, without reducing production in other areas. They consist of 30-40 workers from other professions who leave their normal jobs for a few years to work in the building industry. While they are away, their fellow workers do their jobs as well, so that production does not fall.
We worked for a week in a workplace in Havana's old city that makes doors and windows for the houses that the microbrigades build. We worked together with, among others, welders, TV repairers, a customs officer and a history teacher, who had all gone through a three-month course before they started on machines and at the carpenters' benches. Special working conditions for micro-brigades
The special rule for micro-brigadiers is that the basic labor conditions, such as working hours and wages, should correspond to those in the workplaces and professions from which they come. But they often work longer than the the stipulated workweek. Workdays of 10-12 hours, often including Saturday and Sunday, are very common. This volunteer rewarded only with a better chance for housing when it is assigned, but without any guarantee of how many years it will get to get a place.
The state and the brigadiers' former workplaces share the costs with the building industry. The micro-brigades and the former workplaces get 60% of the housing to divide up, and the state gets the rest. In the capital alone, there are about 35,000 workers in the micro-brigades, and the problem today is more a lack of raw materials than of labor.
The housing the micro-brigades build is divided among the people who built it and partly among the workers at their previous workplaces who have increased production. Who gets housing depends on the individual workers' social needs, their labor contribution, their revolutionary attitude and the number of hours of voluntary work that they do. The allocations are made by a generally assembly of the workers, after a discussion and a vote.
Do Cuban workers really have a say in production?
Thus, competition increases among workers, and they work extra hard. For example, in the workplace where we worked, they told us that in November and December 1988, when it was planned to finish the last of 110 nursery schools in Havana for the thirtieth anniversary of the revolution, they often worked from 7 in the morning until midnight.
In this way, working conditions in Cuba are largely conditioned by the relation to production and the fulfillment of the plan. One of the workers in our workplace, Guido, said: "Everywhere in the world people have to work; that is a necessity in order to live. Here we work a lot because we need houses. It is a choice. I have to sacrifice time with my family now and get a house sometime. That is necessary. You have to sacrifice yourself for your family."
Thus, a part of volunteer labor in Cuba in reality is only another way of dividing up limited goods, even if it is often used as an example of how enthusiastically the Cuban workers are supporting the political line. When one's labor contribution, volunteer work and revolutionary attitude determine access to basic goods, that means that a lot of criticism of working conditions, on-the-job safety and so on is muted. No one wants to take the risk of being seen as an enemy of society. Thus, strikes and other such forms of action are not employed in Cuba.
During our whole time there, we found it a problem to get people to give concrete information going beyond the official explanations and the set expressions about
At the same time, there is very little debate about the development and the course of the economy in the papers and on TV, so that overall we found grounds for questioning whether workers in Cuba have a real influence over production and the direction of the country's development. *