Madrid/More than 15 years ago, 85% of Cuban workers complied with what was expected of them: ratify the proposal that came from above eliminating workers’ dining rooms. The idea, framed in Raúl Castro’s plan to eliminate subsidies, included a compensation measure that was then very convincing to employees: they would receive a “stipend” of 15 pesos a day in return, so that his salary could even duplicate.
“For me, much better if they give me money and I manage. What they give me now not as; it is very bad and I already bring me the house lunch,” a worker then told the Associated Press agency. The elders saw the measure with skepticism, “but it will be good for the country,” said the man. Nothing is further from reality. During the task, it was forced that these payments did not exceed 18 pesos, while the price of meals only became more expensive, and today the situation has deteriorated so much that the special period brings good memories.
“It is an issue that the unions have to relive. During the toughest years of the special period that was achieved, thanks to the initiatives of chefs, assistants and businessmen,” says Roberto Betharte Mazorra, head of the Department of Labor Affairs of the Central of Workers of Cuba – unique Legal Union in Cuba -, which responsible for the situation precisely to the organization of which it is a leader. The newspaper Workers dedicate This Monday a report that reviews the status of workers’ dining rooms and their precarious operation in the places that have maintained it.
“It is an issue that unions have to relive. During the toughest years of the special period that was achieved, thanks to the initiatives of chefs, assistants and entrepreneurs”
Among the cases reported, one of the most outstanding is that of The Special Workshop for People with Disabilities of Holguín, which maintains the most in the theory than in practice. Nelvis Pérez Rodríguez and Maylén Batista Almira – chief and cook of the center – affirm that they have lost the character of protected sector and reveal that since February they do not reach rice or peas, there is only sugar to make tea, they do not have gas for cooking and the electrical appliances with which they could – if the blackout allowed it – cooking are very deteriorated.
In Matanzas, the contracts with the MSMEs, the accounts and some state companies of meat and vegetables are allowing to keep 22 dining rooms and 43 distribution points open with which the workers of the Ministry of Energy and Mines are feeded. The priority of the “assignments”, says the director of Economics and Planning of the Province, Gilberto Castel, is for children’s circles, hospitals, elderly and maternal homes, and hospitalized children and internal education centers. The others must look for life “with endogenous productions, in the territories, and thus compensate for the rice deficit, grains, oil,” the official urges.
That is why the director of the company that feeds the employees of the energy sector, Inti Tabares López, has come to travel personally to Camagüey to buy rice. “I need eight daily bags and more than a year ago nothing supplies the wholesale company of food products, while the service to oil companies to which we belong facilitates some soda, sometimes meat, grains, and we are consistent with the responsibility of guaranteeing four to five dishes. Our workers deserve the best,” he regrets the official weekly.
Workers and union leaders affirm that the merit of these employees – including those who are recovering the super -man -burned base in 2022 – are one of the few who eat well in Cuba is from Tabares himself with his strategy. “Operators eat very well here, two strong dishes are offered … the service is of a lot of quality and only 18 pesos are charged, despite the high cost of the menu. The rest of the value is assumed by the company,” they explain.
That is why the director of the company that feeds the employees of the energy sector, Inti Tabares López, has come to travel personally to Camagüey to buy rice
The same happens in the Cuban company of medical equipment, in Havana, where enough profits are generated to cover the cost of the dining room. “For a meal that is worth around 200 pesos, the worker pays 18,” they explain. Although there are no cases like these.
In Antillana de Acero, the industry revived with Russian collaboration, the dining room works, but complaints abound. The offer, complaint Workersit is repetitive: rice and minces. Although more serious is what one of the employees interviewed reveals: nobody wants to use the plastic dishes they distribute, broken and dirty, and the workers take their own vessels.
Michel Cabrera Madrazo, general secretary of the union bureau in the company, affirms that the quality of the food is questioned in all assemblies, but the director of the industry that prepares it – located in the factory itself and serve six more – defends itself. “We are never below the three dishes, the snacks remain stable, although the soda has fluctuated a little. From the suggestions of contingent members, who work in the structural improvement of the installation, they were given optional food, and the worker who wishes it pays directly,” he says.
The official unexpectedly reveals a detail that, despite the calamitous state of the country, is still surprising. The inputs are expensive and their effort is aimed at not exceeding the budget for the company “which crosses a complex economic situation, as it does not produce.” Antillana de Acero, located in Havana, was reopened in 2023 thanks to a millionaire Russian investment –111 million initial dollars– and its inauguration occupied great space in the official press, which highlighted its potential to employ more than 500 people and produce “between 220,000 and 230,000 tons per year of liquid steel”. It was then noted that until 2024 the factory would not be at full performance, but the statements of Tania Caridad Rodríguez Tellería indicate total inactivity.
The inputs are expensive and their effort is aimed at not exceeding the budget for the company “which crosses a complex economic situation, as it does not produce”
“When many surrendered and removed the dining room, in Antillana it remained,” he says, despite everything, a union leader of the center. According to account Workersmost companies that decided to keep workers’ dining rooms – despite high costs and complaints – were the nickel industries and branch, while in others they were suppressed for the regret of their current employees.
“It was something hot that ate,” says a worker who at the time voted in favor of suppression in the middle. “After the task, in my work they removed the feeding payments and we had to take lunch from the house. At that expense I must add the transport to my center, and this account does not give,” he laments another. Norquides Guerra Montoya, a mechanic who voted against, remains in place even if it is useless.
“In the Cubos factory, of our sector, they claimed and put it again. Why don’t the same thing happen here? We would take more time to not have to go out to see what is, with how expensive everything is. What if I raised it in the union? Of course, and nothing is resolved. Nothing.”
Roberto Betharte Mazorra says that it was never intended to eliminate the dining rooms “but to eradicate subsidies, download the status of all free ones” and that companies create orchards, self -consumption measures and other options. “In the case of global organisms, the State assumed a stipend that, after the ordering, appeared within the salary. It is no less true that, given the current conditions and speculative prices that prevail, this tends to be a permanent claim …”, he adds.
