Cargando...If the powers granted by law to business management and collectives are constantly violated, if poor sales management in the sector stands out, if the level of debts to be collected and paid continues to grow, if accounting does not reflect the reality of the center, if there is no true accountability to the workers, then it is no surprise that by the end of the period so many companies and show financial losses.
Of course, if this is compounded by shortcomings in the union’s organization regarding the management of tasks of greatest importance in the current context of the economy and national life, then the reality becomes even more difficult.
We are talking about incompetence that directly contributes to inefficiency or the increase in companies with losses—one of the Achilles’ heels of Cuban commerce—beyond the obvious lack of economic resources, which is of great importance.
I reflected on this during the most recent Plenary Session of the National Committee of the Union of Commerce, Gastronomy, and Services Workers (SNTCGS), held this Thursday in the halls of the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba () in Havana.
Osnay Miguel Colina Rodríguez, head of the Organizing Commission of the 22nd Congress of the , told the unionists: “A company that has losses is dead, while profitable ones must also think about development.” He asked: “Why so much fear of establishing a cooperative, contractual, legal, transparent relationship with a private economic entity? Why fear negotiating?”
“With such negotiation we activate technologies and human capital. We are going to mobilize the thinking of the workers, but we need one hundred percent of workers’ assemblies, where knowledge resides. When we don’t have answers, we will ask the collectives what to do, because we must provide the productive response the country needs,” he continued.
As a union forum, the Plenary energetically assessed why unionization in the non-state sector shows such poor results, while at the same time failing to discuss with workers and business management what responsibilities belong to each.
It also analyzed the incomplete staffing of leadership positions, a phenomenon that increasingly—negatively—affects the work of the union movement in the commerce sector, where this shortcoming stands among the main debts in its functioning. This can be illustrated by the fact that 19 Cuban municipalities lack a general secretary, something unheard of.
There are even cases of collectives where workers have not been paid for several months—“a cyclical, very serious case,” as described by Betsy Díaz Velázquez, Minister of Domestic Trade—which constitutes chaos and demands stronger union enforcement. How can such a situation be allowed?
It was also revealed that only 9.4% of the more than 52,000 workers in , 61% of those working in Non-Agricultural Cooperatives, and 22% of the self-employed are affiliated with the union—statistics that highlight an excessively large margin of people left outside union management.
Socialist emulation also occupied space, given the incongruences between the results of decorations and honorary titles and what commerce workers truly deserve—especially in a sector that, for example, led the recovery effort from the very beginning after the recent passage of Hurricane Melissa through eastern Cuba.
Undoubtedly, amid growing objective difficulties, the union’s stance among Cuban commerce workers must become effective action to transform the shortcomings that still persist.
