Recently, in the debate on the future of the Cuban economy, there has been a great deal debate on the “workplace incentive policies.” This has involved what are usually called salaries, or wages, and “hard currency incentives.”
We heard the rumor that Santa Cruz’s hospital was going to be turned into a simple polyclinic and that all the specialized services would disappear. Such a decision, taken centrally by the government as part of its new plan for budgetary resource optimization, was not initially discussed with the residents of Santa Cruz.
Forty days ago my mom died. It was in a cold and whitish room in the Oncological Hospital; it was a small room, for two patients.
How legitimate can the announced layoffs be in the eyes of workers if the alternatives have not been appropriately assessed?
Cuba is confronting a new situation of mass layoffs. It’s said that this will involve between a half million and one million redundant workers, mainly in administrative institutions and less-profitable companies.
To mark this date, the news on Cuban TV presented a report (or rather a piece of oratorical journalism with tragic background images) on “Wars and the Environment.”
When I was a little boy my mom spoke to me of Ray Bradbury. We lived in the Soviet Union, and Bradbury was one of the most popular US authors back then. I remember how I searched in that dark Muscovite library for Fahrenheit 451º.
What worries me most in the case of Cuba is that the recently announced government proposal speaks in favor of small private companies and not those of collectives of workers forming cooperatives.
To preach an ideology, it’s indispensable to trap people with catchy slogans and a patchwork of ideas – some true, others not.
You’ll never see on TV is a senior official of the Public Health or Civil Defense ministry with concrete data on how many people have become sick and from what illness.