Gradually, as part of a profound political process, Cuban workers have in their hands the plan for the economy and the budget for this year. And not only to know the numbers that will physically and financially mark the 365 days of 2023, but also to actively participate in the analysis that will take place during the assembly of affiliates or representatives.
In short, it’s not just about knowing and even mastering the production figures, revenues, possible profits… or the amounts to use for each service item. The process, due to its own characteristics and requirements, requires the contribution of the employees in terms of the best use of raw materials, efficiency, savings, solutions and innovations to be able to keep the technical equipment active … or how they are used each assigned in the household Peso, with no variances, offenses or overdrafts.
In other words, it cannot be viewed as a “sew and sing” issue. It is a high point in the work of the trade union movement and it has been repeated. It is not for nothing that the possibility granted is confirmed in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba (Article 20), in the Labor Code (Article 18) and in the conceptualization of the Cuban economic and social model of socialist development, in which the participation of workers in the planning, management and control of the economy.
Obviously, as it says in good Cuban, “it’s serious business,” because it’s about the role that everyone has to play in the country’s economic empowerment and development. Therefore, the assemblies cannot go “on a tangent”, and in each of them it is necessary to “land” with “wings of the plane wide open”.
Today’s conditions are complex: intensified blockade, low foreign exchange earnings from exports, high shortages, budget deficit, extremely high inflation leading to speculative price growth and loss of purchasing power for wages and pensions, partial dollarization of the economy…
This scenario, even if you don’t want it, creates a certain lack of motivation to achieve the required productivity. But only we, with the intelligence and will that characterize us, will be able to face and overcome this difficult situation step by step.
And who, if not the workers, should lead the vanguard, the offensive? The meetings then acquire a very remarkable importance, one might say decisive. The deepest gazes must be directed inward, within each group.
The national and provincial leadership of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) has affirmed that “anyone who has a positive and contributing idea can present it and help find solutions to the most transcendental problems”.
In each unit with conditions, the possibilities of exporting or increasing the quantity and lines, reducing imports, promoting foreign investment, strengthening decentralization, promoting production chains, etc. must be considered.
With regard to the budget, considerations must be made, among other things, on how to reduce deficits, increase income, control expenditure more closely, increase savings and use financial resources rationally.
The intense role played by the trade union movement throughout the process is evident. Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, Secretary General of the CTC, reiterated at the X Ordinary Session of the Ninth Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power: “We must listen to the people, drink from popular wisdom, with concrete proposals that will help promote economic development.
It is always wise to keep Che’s economic thinking in mind in these matters. In July 1961, commander Ernesto Guevara, referring to the functions of the unions in the revolutionary era, declared: “One of them is to grasp the general idea of organization and the goals of government in order to implement them in the company or in the factory discuss level (… ) and take it to heart of the working masses, so that the spirit of what is to be done may incarnate in it and advance with the greatest impetus”.