HAVANA, Cuba.- There is no doubt that the Cuban rulers are concerned about the employment situation in the budgeted sector of the economy. It is a parasitic sector of great proportions in the country, especially if we consider that it encompasses the workers of the exorbitant state machinery of the economy (the agencies of the central administration of the State), the necessary sectors of Health, Education and a good part of Culture, in addition to the large payrolls available to the repressive apparatus of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.
The fact is that there are municipalities in the country in which the salaries of the budgeted sector constitute up to 60% of the total expenses in those territories, something that caught the attention of the participants in the recent session of the Economic Affairs Commission of the National Assembly of People’s Power. To such an extent that the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, made a call to prevent these templates from being oversized.
In a context in which options such as freezing jobs in the budgeted sector could be handled, and even eliminate jobs that are not considered essential, with the consequent impact on thousands of workers, what does the official Central of Workers of Cuba (CTC), the same one that claims to defend the interests of the workers?
Well, the general secretary of that guild, Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, still with the recent memory of his time in Athens, where he complaisantly attended the Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions, chose not to give criteria in this regard. He only opened his mouth to announce the call for the famous Workers’ Parliaments, a second version of those meetings held in Cuba during the hard years of the special period, and which did not solve any problem.
On this occasion, according to the words of the boss of the CTC, these Parliaments will be “the most direct response” of his union to the Economic and Social Strategy drawn up by the machinery of power.
Delving into this topic, Mr. De Nacimiento pointed that “we are concluding the methodological bases to go to a discussion process from the experience of the Workers’ Parliaments, so that anyone who has a proactive and contributing idea can present it in order to find solutions to the most important problem of the economy” .
By the way, it is significant that the head of the CTC, before giving the starting whistle for the start of these Parliaments, announces that some “methodological bases” are being built to enable the development of these meetings.
Clearer, neither the water. The official trade unionism is going to lay down the rules of the game where these Parliaments should conduct themselves. There will be no room for approaches that deviate from the directives issued by the ruling Communist Party.
On the other hand, the information provided about the words of the head of the CTC is extremely ambiguous. Because, what is the most important problem of the economy for Mr. Guilarte de Nacimiento? In truth, there could be many: the scarcity of goods and services, the queues, the tourism that does not take off, the shortage of medicines, the harvest that does not produce even the sugar of the “basic basket”, the lack of public transport, the inflation, and now the anxiety in which the budgeted sector of the economy is struggling.
But of course the machinery of power will have nothing to worry about. The “methodological bases” of Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento will cleanse the path of the Workers’ Parliaments of “impurities”.
OPINION ARTICLE
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