MIAMI, United States. — The Rafael Gómez Mayea Music and Show Marketing Company (ECME), an entity linked to the Cuban Ministry of Culture (MINCULT), went three months without paying its workers a salary, the official newspaper revealed on Thursday Escambray.
The official media reported on the breaches of the ECME through the testimony of some of its employees. Some of them admitted to having kept working despite the violation of their rights.
Javier Valle Moral, one of the union leaders, assured that only through a bank loan could the 68 workers of the state entity earn their salaries.
“Yes, there was discomfort, but no one failed to fulfill their responsibilities. He had a transparent dialogue with the group about each action and the support we received. In the end, we managed to pay for April, May and June thanks to a bank loan,” Valle Moral explained.
However, the loan that the authorities gave to that entity was nothing more than a patch, since the ECME must deliver the money received to the bank plus an interest rate of 4%.
According to information collected by the newspaper Escambraythe company has to repay the loan in 180 days, without taking into account the salaries from July and the disbursements of the payments of electricity, telephone and ONAT bills, among others”.
The official media also indicates that the lack of funds from the ECME has also generated several other drawbacks, such as the drop in record productions, lack of promotion, inability to acquire clothing and instruments for the groups, inability to attend events outside the province, loss of cultural spaces, etc.
The non-payment of the Rafael Gómez Mayea Music and Show Marketing Company (ECME) to its employees even constitutes a violation of the fundamental principles of Cuban socialist labor law, according to the Labor Code imposed by the communist regime.
Despite the complex panorama, Lidia Esther González Uría, director of the entity, is confident that the economic situation can be reversed.
“The company has to go out into the streets to find a source of employment for our musicians. Negotiate with those who request the service. We have to change the mentality and accept that these are times of charging per door, although for traditional music, what gives us prestige as a catalogue, is more complex. But we can’t do it alone”, pointed out the Sancti Spiritus directive.
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