Several operators from Laboratorios Oriente, from the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry group BioCubaFarma, are victims of the ideological purge with which the regime monitors, sanctions and represses to the workers whoand they were absent from the parade May Day in the city of Santiago de Cuba.
Although in any part of the world the march for the International Workers’ Day It is optional, in Cuba is seen as a political obligation that defines the labor status of workers, imposes support for the regime and denies them the right to demand their demands.
The evident apathy of the workers for the acts and massive concentrations It is a form of rejection against inflation, the energy deficit, the lack of food, the loss of the purchasing value of salaries and the failed policies with which the State suffocates their families.
Gisela Bermúdez, a worker at the Oriente Laboratories, assured DIARIO DE CUBA that she was branded a repeat offender and punished for one month without salary stimulation, despite explaining that she could not leave her house because lack of transportation and a piece of bread for their children to snack on.
Meanwhile, Olga Martínez received a reprimand at the Serum and Parenteral Solutions Plant because, in the opinion of its general director, Jorge Orestes Batista, “walking in the middle of a blackout—and at 2:00AM—the ten kilometers between the Plaza of the Antonio Maceo Revolution and the Abel Santamaría cast is no justification for missing such an important celebration”.
Pending “another exam” and in danger of losing his place was Charles, from the line of plastered bandages, for saying that “a country with shortages of all kinds could not afford to concentrate the people so that he would faint from hunger and ingratiate himself with the Government”.
Younger workers were threatened with termination of their contracts and salary penaltiesbecause according to the Administration they were the most responsible for the absence of close to 20% of the group that led the parade and has been receiving the National Vanguard flag for four consecutive years, which confers the Central of Workers of Cuba (CTC).
A custodian who participated in the march suggested to the union leadership not to overdo it, because even Ulises Guilarte, leader of the cuban labor movementasked to celebrate the date with rallies in squares and workplaces, due to lack of fuel to guarantee massive use of transportation.
Yudixia Sarmiento, secretary of the Health Union, indicated review the issue of “demotivation” in healthcare centersespecially at the Ambrosio Grillo Hospital, where members objected that they did not have money to go and return from the concentration points, in the midst of the rise of violence and the rise in ticket prices to inaccessible limits.
One of the aforementioned doctors contrasted workplace harassment with terrible conditions in which they work, specifically those of workers’ transportation, in which 49 workers were injured in 2018; of them 14 doctors, 19 technologists, ten nurses and six assistants, orderlies and secretaries.
Also in the University and other industries
Dayan, one of the students admitted to Higher Education without passing the entrance exams, was asked for this supposed state kindness for not attending the concentration. When explaining his arguments, they blamed him for “being a victim of ideological distortion and media intoxication.”
“You could be on the streets, at the mercy of antisocial behavior, drugs and prostitution,” that’s how they yelled at him in the classroom, he said. “As in the rest of the universities, in the Eastern one, teaching is not inclusive, but rather exclusive and ideologically subordinated to arbitrariness,” she added.
Dr. Velázquez, from the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences, was one of the professors questioned, he received the threat of expulsion and they stressed to him that “universities in Cuba are for revolutionaries,” and those who graduate or teach in their classrooms “have to be unconditional to the regime.”
He government control and indoctrination mechanism had another clear expression of irrationality in the Hermanos Díaz Refinery and the Renté Thermoelectric Plant, where the alleged offenders reminded their employers and hierarchical bosses of the health risks that no one addresses and are the main causes of accidents and occupational diseases.
César Pardo, an electrical engineer, recalled that more important than this type of “summary trials, which have nothing to do with the essence of the union assemblies, are the difficult scenarios that both entities face without helmets, boots, earmuffs, gas masks, coveralls, gloves, first aid kits and first aid stations.
“No union leader is concerned about traditional occupational pathologies, such as nodular laryngitis, occupational hearing loss, dermatology and other diseases, including bronchial asthma and cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and ophthalmological conditions,” confirmed the engineer.
The labor purge It also included the stevedoring brigades of the Guillermón Moncada port. There Paco expressed his bewilderment with the lack of protection and insecurity of the workers, which at the beginning of this year claimed the lives of three of his colleagues, who died from asphyxiation during the unloading of a ship with 30,000 tons of rice.
“They did not arrive alive at the Military Hospital, which is just a few blocks away. They breathed a toxic gas in one of the warehouses and died immediately. However, they do not take into account that we face this every day and now they want to rip the strip off our skin for not going to a parade,” he added.
Navaroli, from the Antonio Maceo Airport, assumed a similar position of complaint and dissatisfaction, in whose Protocol Terminal three helicopter pilots died last April, despite the regulations that “those aircraft cannot fly at night, except for those of search and rescue in operational mission”.
Leaders face worker apathy
The concern with which leaders face apathy and disinterest in work Regarding the anniversary, it calls into question the unity and “unconditional support” of the workers towards the Government.
He May Day parade in Santiago de Cuba It started at 7:00AM and only lasted about 50 minutes. While the images posted by the regime were part of the mirage created by cameramen and photojournalists to show a non-existent massiveness.
Prior to the event, union leaders toured the streets with horns on the roofs of cars and water pipes for areas with distribution cycles of more than 20 days.
At the end of the rally, the Government opened several recreation areas, in an attempt to create a false illusion of stability. For it It sacrificed the population of peripheral areas with almost ten hours of blackouts.
In the Abel Santamaría, José Martí, Versalles and Pastorita residential areas They cut off the electrical service on more than seven occasions.
Sources close to the Provincial Directorate of the CTC confirmed to DIARIO DE CUBA that the analyzes will be carried out in all the companies of the 15 unions.
In these improvised “ideological purification” meetings The physical deterioration, lack of good nutrition and high levels of stress among workers come to light, suffering from unprecedented job and salary insecurity.
Also the failures and lack of control of work systemsalong with the failure to comply with safety and protection standards by the administrations, responsible for risk mitigation.
He Cuban government has not ratified 15 international agreements on social security. Among them, disability, old-age and survivors benefits (1967), occupational cancer benefits (1974), benefits in case of work accidents and occupational diseases (1964) and a safe and healthy work environment.
Regarding the prevention of risks, accidents or occupational diseases, there are another dozen agreements that Cuba has not ratified.
