Horse Drawn Cart Drivers on Strike

HAVANA TIMES — One hundred and ten carriage drivers, including their assistants, conducted a work stoppage this past last Friday at the Varadero beach resort to protest high taxes, reported the Hablemos Press.

“The drivers are required to pay the government about US $12 per day,” said Ramiro Gonzalez, an assistant to one of the drivers. “We’re not going to work until they lower our taxes. We want this to be known by the national authorities but also by the independent and foreign press,” he added.

“We made it clear to the authorities that this isn’t an issue of politics or counterrevolution, we just want the union that we pay to defend us, to respond for us now and to come up with an agreement without any side being negatively affected,” said Gonzalez.

Freight and passenger transportation, along with the preparation and sale of food, are the industries with the greatest number of workers involved in the ongoing process of public sector downsizing on the island.