Central de Trabajadores de Cuba

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cuban Workers Headquarters
(CTC)
purpose Trade union confederation
Chair: Ulises Guilarte
Establishment date: November 28, 1961
Number of members: 18 unions (2,998,634 workers)
Seat : Havana , Cuba
Website: http://www.trabajadores.cu
Child with CTC flag at May rally in Havana
Slogans at the May rally in Havana: "More productive and efficient", "Discipline and control in the workplace"
“Unity and Victory”, “Discipline and Control in the Workplace”, “Active Leaders in Economic Development”, “Freedom for the Five”, “United in the Production and Defense of Socialism”, “Preserving and Improving Socialism” and “ always until victory ".

The Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC - dt .: Central Workers of Cuba ) is the central trade union federation in Cuba and has 3.29 million members (2014), 220,000 of them in the private sector. Since it was founded in 1961, it has been under the control of the revolutionary government led by Fidel and Raúl Castro in an authoritarian manner and is the only officially recognized employee representative body. Unions independent of the government and the CTC are not permitted.

Predecessor organizations

The predecessor organization of the CTC was the Confederación Nacional Obrera de Cuba (CNOC) ( National Workers ' Confederation of Cuba ), which was the first central workers' organization in Cuba and has supported and promoted the struggle between the classes since its foundation . The CNOC, under the tutelage of the Communist Party , led two well-known major strikes : the first in August 1933 against the authoritarian government of Gerardo Machado , the second in March 1935, which resulted in brutal repression by the Mendieta government .

Based on these events, the CNOC was declared illegal and many of its executives were murdered or imprisoned. This marked the beginning of the underground struggle for the release of political prisoners and the legalization of trade unions. During the Second Latin American Workers 'Congress , which took place in Mexico in September 1938 , the participating Cuban trade unionists committed themselves to unite the Cuban workers' movements.

Birth of the CTC

In fulfillment of the promise of the Second Latin American Workers' Congress, the founding congress of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (Confederation of Cuban Workers) was held in Havana from 23 to 28 January 1939 , in which around 1,500 delegates from around 700 mass organizations took part. At this congress, the worker Lázaro Peña was elected Secretary General of the CTC.

Since its inception, the organization has been viewed with suspicion by governments. As in the days of the CNOC, union leaders were persecuted, arrested or murdered. This situation changed suddenly with the success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, when the unions were gradually forcibly unified and placed under government control. Later, in 1961, the name of the Confederation was changed to Central de Trabajadores de Cuba .

Structure and function

In Cuba, the trade union federation is one of the state mass organizations which, according to the Marxist-Leninist understanding, play the role of a “transmission belt”, with the help of which the politics of the Communist Party is carried into society: According to Article 7 of the Cuban constitution , the mass organizations bind each other it represented parts of the population in the "construction, consolidation and defense of socialist society". In this respect, the function of the trade unions in Cuba differs from the historical trade union movement as an independent representation of the interests of employees vis-à-vis employers. By far the most important employer in Cuba is the state. The then Deputy Prime Minister Raúl Castro described the new role of the CTC in the revolutionary state in 1963 as follows: “Yesterday it was necessary for the unions to fight incessantly to gain certain advantages, to get a little more of the profits made by the magnates . Today the great task of the CTC and the trade unions is to increase production, recruit voluntary workers, tighten work discipline, ensure higher productivity and improve the quality of the products. "

Joining the Cuban workers' organization is voluntary; independent competing federations outside this structure, which is based on around 19 national trade unions, are not permitted. A union section can be formed in any job with more than five workers. Around 96% of Cuban employees are union members, which means that the organization as a whole has a high mobilization factor. Although membership in the Communist Party is officially voluntary, 95 percent of the leadership cadres are members, which underlines the strong identification between the state and the union.

The unionists are nominated for election by the workers in the factories. The elected union secretaries are then released from their duties and operate as such. According to their self-image under socialism, the task of the trade unions is not to fight wages, but to ensure compliance with industrial safety and working hours in the company. Increasing production and improving work processes are also among the tasks of the unions.

In Cuba, the trade unions have operational power and can remove the works manager from his post if this does not do justice to his work in the eyes of the workers.

The statutes stipulate that a congress must be called every five years, at which the general secretary and the new representatives of the National Council, the National Committee and the Secretariat are appointed. The current general secretary is Salvador Valdés, who is also a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba . The union leaders are trained in 14 provincial centers and in the national cadre school Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Sindicales "Lázaro Peña" in Havana. The official organ of the trade union federation is the weekly “Trabajadores” (“working people”).

In Cuba, union officials (together with representatives of other mass organizations) also form the selection committees for candidates for the elected representative bodies at provincial and national level.

literature

  • Samuel Farber : Cuba since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment. , especially Chapter 4: Cuban Workers after the 1959 Revolution - Ruling Class or Exploited Class? (with a detailed analysis of the Cuban labor movement before and since the founding of the CTC), Haymarket: Chicago 2011, ISBN 978-1-60846-139-4 (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Salvador Valdés en Pleno del Consejo Nacional de la CTC , Radio Rebelde of February 21, 2015
  2. ↑ International Trade Union Confederation : Cuba - Annual Review of Violations of Union Rights , accessed September 25, 2012
  3. ↑ Constitution of the Republic of Cuba (as of 1992) ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 303 kB), translation by the FRG – Cuba friendship society, accessed on September 25, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cubafreundschaft.de
  4. ↑ Quoted from: Roberto E. Hernández and Carmelo Mesa-Lago: Labor Organization and Wages , p. 213, in: Carmelo Mesa-Lago (ed.): Revolutionary Change in Cuba , University of Pittsburgh Press 1971, ISBN 0-8229- 5244-0 (English)
  5. ^ "We even import tomato sauce" , Neues Deutschland from April 13, 2012
  6. ↑ Salvador Valdés on monthlyreview.org (English)