Labor Relations, Labor Rights, and Trade Unions

From day one of the Revolution, new labor policies have had an extremely important role in building a new society. After reviewing the working conditions before the Revolution and the important, radical changes in the Revolution’s first decade, Alfredo Morales addresses eleven dimensions of working conditions and labor relations today: general conditions of work including safety and health; labor conditions and protection for women and adolescents; labor contracts and collective labor agreements; resolution of labor conflicts; salaries; increased efficiency and labor productivity; social security and pensions; unemployment; self-employment; international labor agreements; and trade unions. There is a broad consensus in Cuba that the population’s material standard of living needs to improve and that the key to accomplishing this is increased labor productivity and general productive efficiency. But here, Cuba’s chosen commitment to building socialism takes center stage, particularly in relation to the treatment of labor in this process. Improving labor productivity and general productive efficiency will require further changes in labor conditions and relations beyond those already instituted over the last twenty years. But whereas today first world countries and most of the third world are attacking labor’s rights and previous gains, Cuba’s socialist commitment precludes that path.