Cuba May 1st Workers Parade in Pictures
Photo Feature by Juan Suarez and Elio Delgado Valdes
HAVANA TIMES — Cubans turned out in mass for the annual International Workers Day parade through the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana on Thursday. The marches, organized by the Communist Party and the CTC, the only trade union allowed on the island, are billed as a show of united support around all government policies, this time emphasizing the economic reforms approved in 2011. We bring you some images.
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You might want to spend sometime reading about US and MLB policy, they might not want to go back because the US and the MLB penalize them. In Mexico there is a lrage number of Cuban players who go back home, pay taxes because of agreements between Cuba and Mexico. US should do the same abd allow Cuba players (very nationalist like most Cubans) want to play for their country in international events…US does not allow that, Mexico does???
The players that play baseball in America don’t want to go back.
This is not your lucky day, I travel there often and visit hospital with groups learning about its medical system, much better than most hospital than in Latin America and free. Their writers are famous across the world, their painters, their athletes (now some play in Mexico, Japan) those who go to US cannot return because US will not allow it under embargo so they have to defect. They are healthier than Latin Americans and in cases than americans, especially minorities. $20 dollars in Cuba (now that the Euro is lower) can get you a lot of fresh food and the ration is free.Now that they can travel (I just had a Cuban friend visit) and returned how come millions are not leaving? It’s neither hell nor heaven, just a poor country doing the best it can while under attack by the US. On the terrorist list? Most terrorists are in the US.
The monthly rations don’t last two weeks, the hospitals are filthy, the education is loaded with propaganda and none of it is free. With average salaries at less than $20 per month, Cubans carry an effective tax rate of 95%.
Oh, and they have no say or choice in any of it.
Yeah now they have lost their rights to go hungry, not having health care, free education, etc.
Notice how the machine guns are forcing people to participate! Haaa there is revolutionary Cuba for another century! Viva la revolucion!
LOL! Does anybody else find it bitterly ironic that the Cuban workers, under orders from their government controlled union to come out and march on May 1st , are photographed holding portraits of the man who took away from the Cuban workers the right to strike and the right to collective bargaining?
“By no means can Cuban workers go on strike!” declared the Minister of Industries, Che Guevara, on June 26, 1961. “Cuban workers must adjust to life in a collectivist social order!”
Thanks for the fotos, Elio y Juan! !Fraternal May Day greetings from the “People’s Republic of Vermont!” The last time I attended May Day in Habana was in 2006, where I enjoyed one of Fidel’s last public appearances.
Today, I attended May Day festivities here in Vermont, and am really energized! We filled the grounds of the state capitolio, and our march stretched down State Street for three long blocks, then up Main Street for another two. I’d estimate somewhere between 1,300 to 1,700. What is even more encouraging, perhaps two-thirds of the participants were young folks, in their teens, twenties and thirties, in addition to us usual refugees from the 1960’s (and older). Also, many young families with kids. In additon, a contingent of Mexican and Central American farm workers (a couple of speeches in Spanish), plus labor unions, environmental groups, etc. I bugged out an hour early to attend our own diminuitive May Day celebration here in Brattleboro (of around 50 participants, mostly elders, but still more young folks than last year. To make both events, had to zoom down I-89 and I-91, but made the 140 miles from Montepelier to Brattleboro in under two hours!