Image

Jobless in Cuba?

User avatar
This is troubling comrades. I don't believe this missive was party approved. This AP reporter should be called into comrade holder's office for questioning. Though it appears the story has been framed correctly, stating that there are simply "too many workers" as sopposed to "too few jobs". It seems then a new round of purges would go a long way here to help solve this problem? Our progressive revolutionary brothers in Cuba appear to be considering some sort of free market reforms. A "neo-liberalism". How soon they have forgotten their glorious history! Viva la Revolutuion! The free market is so unfair and un-equal.

This will not sit well with the Party.. Dear leader Chairman Zero should call a summit and consult wth comrade Castro. Chairman Zero's version of socialsim and social justice for all progs is what our communist brothers in Cuba need. With his shining brilliance, Chairman Zero will easily sove this crisis, I am certain! After first declaring that his policies have solved the Gulf oil spill crisis though of course (priorities). It appears now that the hole has been plugged, thanks to Dear Leader's tireless efforts (to improve his golf swing)! Glorious though- note the very low unemployment rate of only 1.7%! The mother state provides 95% of equal work for the proles. So many teats the mother state has! Such equality and justice for the people makes a humble prog just tingle all over!

"The state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years — but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs that pay monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average."

"Without people feeling the need to work to make a living, sheltered by state regulations that are excessively paternalistic and irrational, we will never stimulate a love for work," he said."

Man your shovels, Cuban comrades! Repeat to yourselves- "Hope and Change, Hope and Change!" Mmm-mmmm-mmm!

https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100718/ap_on_bi_ge/cb_cuba_too_many_workers

Jobless in Cuba? Communism faces the unthinkable


Image
Image
~
AP – ** FOR USE SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010 ** In this photo June 24, 2010 photo, construction workers labor inside … By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA, Associated Press Writer Anne-marie Garcia, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 26 mins ago HAVANA – At a state project to refurbish a decaying building in Old Havana, one worker paints a wall white while two others watch. A fourth sleeps in a wheelbarrow positioned in a sliver of shade nearby and two more smoke and chat on the curb.

President Raul Castro has startled the nation lately by saying about one in five Cuban workers may be redundant. At the work site on Obispo street, those numbers run in reverse. It's a common sight in communist Cuba. Here, nearly everyone works for the state and official unemployment is minuscule, but pay is so low that Cubans like to joke that "the state pretends to pay us and we pretend to work." Now, facing a severe budget deficit, the government has hinted at restructuring or trimming its bloated work force. Such talk is causing tension, however, in a country where guaranteed employment was a building block of the 1959 revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power.

Details are sketchy on how and when such pruning would take place. Still, acknowledgment that cuts are needed has come from Raul Castro himself. "We know that there are hundreds of thousands of unnecessary workers on the budget and labor books, and some analysts calculate that the excess of jobs has surpassed 1 million," said Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel as president nearly four years ago.

Cuba's work force totals 5.1 million, in a population of 11.2 million. In his nationally televised speech in April, Castro also had harsh words for those who do little to deserve their salaries.

"Without people feeling the need to work to make a living, sheltered by state regulations that are excessively paternalistic and irrational, we will never stimulate a love for work," he said. Indeed, the process of labor reform may already have started, albeit slowly. Workers in the tourism sector say some of their colleagues have been furloughed during the lean summer months, while others have been reassigned to jobs on state-run farms.

"Since we are now in the low season, the hotel where I work has sent many workers home for two or three months," said Orlando, a chef in Varadero, a sand-and-surf enclave east of Havana. "It's very hard because you're left with no salary at all," said Orlando, who like almost all state employees, didn't want his full name used to prevent problems at work. He added, "I'm lucky since I'm still in my job."

Veronica, a receptionist at another Varadero hotel, said she feared she may be sent home in August, when her resort will be only half-occupied. "Sometimes they offer alternatives, to study in a particular course or another job," she said, "but sometimes, when (workers) are sent into the agricultural sector for instance, they just quit."

With the government giving no details of its thinking, rumors have spread that as many as a fourth of all government workers in some industries could lose their jobs or be moved to farming or construction. But Labor Minister Margarita Gonzalez has promised that "Cuba will not employ massive firings in a manner similar to neoliberal cutbacks," using "neoliberal" as a description of free-market policies. The government has moved to embrace some small free-market reforms. It handed some barbershops over to employees, allowing them to set their own prices but making them pay rent and buy their own supplies.

Authorities have also approved more licenses for private taxis while getting tough on unlicensed ones. The global financial crisis, and the $10 billion in damage inflicted by three hurricanes in 2008, have forced authorities to run a deficit of 5 percent of GDP, leaving them unable to pay back credits received from China and elsewhere. Cuba slashed spending on importing food and other basics by 34 percent to $9.6 billion in 2009, from $12.7 billion the previous year.

But so far, the moves have not been enough to rein in the deficit. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba economics expert and professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, said Cuban officials have spent months debating cuts in the labor force and economic reforms. He said they know what's needed, but face "a problem of political viability." V

arious government perks like cars, gas, uniforms and office supplies have become incentives to bloat the payroll, since they are based on the size of a company's work force. But low pay means low productivity. On Obispo street, a state-run cafeteria sells heavily subsidized soft ice cream and pork sandwiches for the equivalent of a few American pennies — meaning wages and tips are so tiny that the staff is complete indifferent toward customers. Three waiters sit at the counter cracking jokes. A fourth is the only one working, making coffee for three tables. Nearby, a cashier stares into space, a cook flirts with a scantily clad teen and a supervisor sits idly by.

The state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years — but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs that pay monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average.

Salvador Valdes Mesa, secretary-general of the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation — the only Cuban labor union allowed — has instead written that "reorganization" will ensure redundant workers are reassigned rather than fired.

He said the government wants more jobs in construction and agriculture. Still, 35-year-old computer engineer Norberto fears for his job. He thinks it's unfair to keep workers under communist domination and yet call them unmotivated. "I didn't graduate from college to now work as a day laborer or a peasant, he said. If he loses his job and gets an offer to work abroad, he said, "my question is 'Will the Cuban authorities put aside their paternalism and let me leave?'"

User avatar
I denounce today what the vile Rush Limbaugh will surely find glee in tomorrow!

How dare the state controlled AP print this!

How dare Hu Jintao not share in Dear Leaders Communist glee!

assholes.jpg

How dare these ingrate Cubans question the Communism that's been so good to them!

How dare I post this wordless youtube that will surely invoke Leninka outrage and Pulloskie breast sweat!!



Not to mention the asshole hoarders in our midst...

User avatar
No doubt these unproductive workers have stalled the success of the revolution.

User avatar
The Cuban problem is nothing that a 57 Chevy converted into a boat can't fix. Image

User avatar
It has always been known throughout the Motherland that those lazy Cuban louts have been soiling our Collective reputation. This comes as no surprise. If that Woos Kennedy and his baying pigs had not chickened out we would have been rid of them. What good has that patch of sand done for us? Well, it has been a thorn in the Capitalist butt so there is that. And it gives the Democrat Left something to admire.

User avatar
Oh, basta. There are plenty of jobs in Cuba. That's just more bad propaganda.

Image


User avatar
Leninka wrote:Oh, basta. There are plenty of jobs in Cuba. That's just more bad propaganda.
Viva! La Revolucion! It makes El Presidente horny happy to see the sacrifice The People's of Cuba (Kooba) will go through to feel fill the gap in their lives.


 
POST REPLY