Where denouncing labor abuses is illegal (Cuba)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/389850.html

OUR OPINION: PRESS CUBA TO REFORM, RESPECT WORKERS' RIGHTS
Posted on Wed, Jan. 23, 2008

Now is a good time for labor and democracy activists to press for worker rights and reform in Cuba. With Fidel Castro still sidelined and the economy crumbling, pressure for reform is building -- not only from ordinary Cubans but also from the international community. Promoting the Arcos Principles, which set standards for foreign businesses in Cuba, could pay dividends in a future transition, if not sooner.

The State Department and private-advocacy groups such as the Cuba Study Group do well to lobby governments, international-labor groups and business communities to help improve labor rights and conditions in Cuba.

A 95 percent tax?

For all its talk of being a socialist paradise, Cuba exploits workers horribly. Its labor practices hurt both workers and the foreign businesses that become partners in the abuse. Foreign businesses, for example, may only hire workers through a government agency. Foreign firms pay wages in hard currency to the agency, which in turn pays the workers less than 5 percent of those wages in pesos. That's a 95 percent tax. Ordinary Cubans, the vast majority of whom work for the government, get paid even less. Forget pay for performance. The regime also bans independent unions. In fact, six labor activists remain in prison, serving terms from 12 years to 26 years. Their ''crimes''? Denouncing violations of international-labor standards and attempting to organize workers into independent unions, what union activists routinely do in free countries. These men should be freed.

Such labor abuses inspired the late Cuban dissident Gustavo Arcos to propose the Arcos Principles. Those principles require foreign investors in Cuba to:

• Hire Cubans directly, not through a state agency, and keep politics out of hiring decisions.

FULL article at link.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Well, since rents for native Cubans are $5/month, I'd first worry about the abuses in...

.... Commie China, where people are literally (I'm not making this up) dropping DEAD at the factories our CEOs placed there working 18 hours per day at the rate of 25 and 50 cents an hour. Most of our factory jobs are in Commie China. They used to once be here in the U.S., but no more. :(