[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 170 (Tuesday, October 31, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11459-H11460]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        WORKERS' RIGHTS IN CUBA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, in his desperate effort to hold on to 
power at any cost and by any means necessary, Cuban tyrant Fidel Castro 
has turned the Cuban economy into a slavelike system.

[[Page H11460]]

  In Castro's new economy, where foreign investors call the shots, 
workers get the short end of the deal.
  While the regime collects all the hard currency produced by foreign 
investors, the Cuban worker, already denied his civil and human rights, 
is paid by the State.
  Not in hard currency, but in Cuban pesos, at the official rate of one 
peso per dollar, although, in reality, the real exchange rate is more 
like 25 pesos to the dollar.
  As one foreign investor put it, ``you pay $500 for an employee, and 
he receives the equivalent of $20.''
  In Cuba, Mr. Speaker, independent labor unions, worker strikes, and 
collective bargaining are prohibited.
  Instead, there is one State-controlled puppet union, the Cuban 
Workers Central, which reacts to every whim of the Cuban tyrant.
  For example, in 1992, when Cuban ports worker Rafael Gutierrez 
attempted to establish an independent labor union, the Cuban Workers 
Trade Union, he was arrested and detained at State security 
headquarters, for subversion and distribution of enemy propaganda.
  Mr. Gutierrez was later released, but was not able to find employment 
due to the regime's persecution against him.
  In 1994, Mr. Gutierrez was denied a visa by the Cuban regime to speak 
at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Human Rights 
Commission, where he would have condemned the regimes' human rights 
violations.
  Finally, tired of the repression against him, Mr. Gutierrez was one 
of the thousands of Cubans who sought their freedom, aboard a rickety 
raft, and was one of the refugees held at the Guantanamo Naval Base.
  More deplorable and tragic is how the Cuban regime is now using its 
repression of workers' rights to attract foreign investment to the 
island.
  Last August, Miguel Taladrid, the regime's Deputy Minister of Foreign 
Investment and Economic Cooperation, stated that, ``The current system 
is more convenient. We are free from labor conflcits; nowhere else in 
the world could you get this tranquilty.''
  Unfortunately, the regimes' promotion of its repression of the Cuban 
worker, is having the desired effect on investors.
  A businessman from the Dominician Republic had this to say, ``The 
main reason why I chose to invest in Cuba, rather than in the Dominican 
Republic, was the assurance by the Cubans that I would not have to 
negotiate, or be forced to sign, collective agreements with trade 
unions.''
  He added that, ``The Cuban Government is attracting European 
investors by promising cheap labor and the absence of free trade 
unions.''
  This tragic scenario of workers' rights in Cuba is apparently alien 
to some of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, who hosted 
and expressed their great admiration for Castro during his recent trip 
to New York City.
  My Democrat colleagues from that great city all have excellent 
lifetime voting records supporting workers' rights in the United 
States, according to the AFL-CIO. One of them has 100 percent lifetime 
AFL-CIO record, while the other two have a 95 and 94 percent rating.
  Apparently, my colleagues are all for worker rights, except, of 
course, when those rights might interfere or harm their relationship 
with their good buddy, Fidel Castro.
  For not a peep was heard from them, condemning the repression of 
workers' rights in Cuba by Castro.
  Maybe we should not be surprised, Mr. Speaker, that my colleagues 
would not want to tarnish their sweet relationship with the tyrant.
  After all, they spend a lot of time and effort to assure that the 
tyrant received a warm greeting in New York City.
  One of our colleagues made a heart-warming gift to Castro: a pair of 
boxing gloves claiming that, ``Fidel is No. 1.''
  Yet another one could not contain himself and repeatedly hugged the 
tyrant and applauded Castro's rhetoric of being for the working people 
of the world.
  Apparently, my colleagues do not care much for those like Mr. 
Gutierrez and others who dared to challenge the regimes' repression, 
for never did they bring up the subject of workers' rights to Castro.
  The same congressional colleagues oppose the U.S. embargo against 
Castro and, instead, promote free and open trade with the tyrant, as an 
instrument to push him from power.
  Oddly, some of them did not promote these views in Haiti or South 
Africa, where some supported economic embargoes against the 
undemocratic regimes of those two countries to help bring freedom and 
democracy.
  My colleagues might be for workers' rights in the United States, and 
Castro might give the impression that he supports working people of the 
world, but neither my colleagues nor Castro show much concern for the 
working people of Cuba.
  If an award were to be given for hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker, my three New 
York Democrat colleagues who cheered Castro in New York would win hands 
down.
  Today is trick or treat day. But our New York colleagues got an early 
start on Halloween. They treated Castro well; they tried to trick the 
people of the United States and Cuba. But freedom-loving people will 
not be fooled. Democracy must come to my enslaved native homeland.

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