Cuba raises salaries of skilled workers

Miami Herald ^ | November 24, 2005 | FRANCES ROBLES frobles@herald.com

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Less than a week after declaring an assault on Cuba's ''new rich,'' President Fidel Castro raised salaries Wednesday, bringing total wage hikes this year to 25 percent.

Aimed largely at highly skilled professional workers, the raises appear designed to address the growing schism in Cuban society, where doctors often give up their government salaries in favor of more lucrative jobs driving taxis.

Castro addressed the new measures on state television Wednesday night, The Associated Press reported, saying the raw salary figures don't take into account the broad range of free and heavily subsidized services that Cuban workers enjoy. ''If we count everything . . . the salaries are more than $1,000,'' he declared.

The move followed a speech last week in which Castro vowed to crack down on people who line their pockets with stolen government goods. He railed against those who pilfer and resell gasoline and promised to cut back on private enterprise.

''The Cuban government is really trying hard to refocus very aggressively on equity,'' said Daniel P. Erikson, director of the Caribbean program at the Inter-American Dialogue. ``The social equality that existed for decades disintegrated so dramatically in the '90s, it had gotten out of hand.''

But the announcement of higher pay and pensions came with a downside. The government increased electricity rates among heavy users to stave off an energy crisis and encourage conservation.

The measures form another swing in Castro's economic policy, which, after moving to allow more private enterprise during the first half of the 1990s, now seeks to cut back on things like farmer's markets, where prices are not controlled by the government.

The trick, experts said, is to do that and at the same time diminish domestic discontent.

''There's not a lot of economics in this,'' said international economist Jorge Pérez López. ``These are diversionary tactics.''

Among the announcements published Wednesday in the Communist Party daily newspaper Granma:

• People with a master's degree or its equivalent will receive a $4-a-month raise; doctors will see a $7.40 raise.

• Nearly 5,000 job categories were moved to higher pay grades.

• Highly productive workplaces will be eligible for bonuses of up to nearly $10 a month.

• Some state workers will see their first raise since 1982.

The pay hikes follow a similar raise in May, when the minimum wage went from $5 a month to about $11, costing the state $3.2 million a year.

''Cuba is advancing rapidly toward the reduction of inequality and injustices,'' Castro said in a recent speech.

''The salary increases are not going to be enough,'' said Jorge Piñon, a research associate at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. ``Wait until people have to pay for food at market prices.''

''Subsidizing electricity created a wasteful society,'' Piñon added. 'And now it's like Castro is finally throwing out his 37-year-old son to the street and saying, `It's time for you to earn your living and see what it takes to survive.' ''

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Electrician Pablo Balkazar, left, repairs an electric line on a street of Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2005. The Cuban Government announced an economic package with measures that will increase electrical tariffs, to rationalize with the current ones that are heavily subsidized. It also announced a major restructuring of government salaries and pensions, saying that after raising the minimum wage earlier this year it wanted to reward workers for high productivity and advanced university degrees. (AP Photo/Jorge Rey)

Castro's Medical Mercenaries ***.......And then there's the money: Castro's doctors help to keep the Cuban regime equipped with hard currency. While a number of the destination countries are destitute, others make cash or in-kind payments to Cuba, and Castro maintains a firm grip on such inflow, say those who study Cuba's economy. ..........*** Source

_____________________________________________________________

[The U.S. Congress is being asked to look into Swiss banking giant UBS amid questions over its handling of bank-note transactions for Cuba.

Newspapers have picked up on Florida Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's complaints that the bank hasn't satisfactorily explained the source of $3.9 billion processed for Cuba over a period of seven years. UBS paid a $100 million fine in 2004 for doing business with Cuba and other rogue states and hoped the issue would go away.

It hasn't. Ros-Lehtinen has sent a series of letters to the likes of Treasury Secretary John Snow and UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel. "We're trying to get to the bottom" of where the billions of dollars came from, says her spokesman. Some Cuban-Americans have their own ideas, citing cash obtained from illicit drug trafficking. A 2004 congressional hearing revealed almost nothing, says Ernesto Betancourt, a retired economist.

UBS denies any money laundering and says the amounts were consistent with tourism revenues to Cuba.]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

More from article LINKED in Post #1:

***..........By the mid-1990s Cuba's vaunted medical program was crumbling as well. Hospital patients asked relatives in Miami to send bedsheets, pillowcases and cotton balls because Cuba's hospitals had none. Hospital hallways were dark because staff stole the lightbulbs in order to resell them. Some doctors complained they couldn't write prescriptions: no paper or pens. Córdova's frustrations mounted. Some days, he turned patients away. "You can make a diagnosis, but there's no medication to treat it," he says. "No penicillin, no aspirin. It is like a bad joke."

Yet at certain hospitals, such as Cira García in Havana, the shelves were well stocked with drugs and top-of-the-line equipment. Cira García strictly treated foreigners with hard currency and Cuba's ruling elite--doctors' families not included. .....***

[Just mythoughts]

Oh boy our liberals will be back on the minimum wage increase in the coming days and weeks.

[meandog]

The Associated Press reported the raw salary figures don't take into account the broad range of free and heavily subsidized services that Cuban workers enjoy.

It's good to see the A-Pee is back to its unbiased standards

[SamAdams76]

''If we count everything . . . the salaries are more than $1,000,'' he declared.

Woo-hoo! Don't spend it all in one place guys!

[aardvark1]

What a great country! The president has to decide on all pay raises. Castro has transformed the presidential office into a giant Human Resources island.

[R. Scott]

WOW! Soon Cuba will catch up to the 3rd World hell holes!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Crumbling building in Cuba. Who takes responsibility of this building. The official response I just heard on the TV is something like this, "people don't take care of the buildings they live in. They live just wait for the government to do something." Of course no one repairs a building that he does not own, especially when everything that is needed for maintaining the building is rationed. Throw in some permissions that have to be obtained in order to do anything, the results are predictable. Source

Visual Economics "The setting up of a social system which eliminates selfish exploitation of the means of production, of a social system which converts the means of production into the people's property, something to be developed for the benefit of the whole people, finds its complement in the introduction of technology and machinery. As a result, not only can man work for society as a whole, but his work will also have a far higher productivity and he is freed from the kinds of work that are really hard. You will understand perfectly well the effort required by 40 men working 8 hours in a climate such as ours, digging furrows; you will understand how much human energy, how much effort and how much sacrifice these machines eliminate.

Through such methods, as the result of its tremendous rate of progress thanks to the use of technology, a modern and just society can achieve successes which will permit even animals -- those animals we still look upon with sorrow from time to time, because we also see them working in the fields -- will be set free by these machines. - Fidel Castro (1968)

One of Havana's "Camel buses". They cram up to 300 people in these contraptions and they are pulled around town by semi tractor trucks. Source

[endthematrix]

"''Cuba is advancing rapidly toward the reduction of inequality and injustices,'' Castro said in a recent speech. "

Advancing? Just finish that darn Revolution already!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes, they're so predictable.

Stupid and loving Castro.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Too bad they can't fire the boss.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[DB]

Castro the great equalizer... Instead of some people having more than others, everyone is made equal, dirt poor...

The poorest of the poor here are spectacularly wealthy compared to the average Cuban under Castro's social "justice".

[Just mythoughts]

Parts of some of our inner cities do not look much better, and sadly many of these people too are waiting for government to fix up their homes.

One would think that Chavez would be sending "charity" OIL to Cuba.

[DB]

More like set fire to the boss...

[DB]

Chavez does send oil to Cuba.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There should be no complaints.

Castro gives rice cookers to women 10/03/2005 22:47

HAVANA (Reuters) - President Fidel Castro has given Cuban women some good news on International Women’s Day: rice cookers are coming to every household.

In a five-hour 45-minute speech to cheering women on Tuesday night, the Cuban leader announced 100,000 pressure cookers and rice cookers would be available each month at subsidized prices.

"Those of you who like rice cookers, raise your hands," Castro said to applause from hundreds of women. The 78-year-old leader spent two hours talking about the merits of pressure cookers.

Castro’s gesture may have carried some irony, coming on a day commemorating women’s battles for equality. But many Cuban women, who do the vast majority of domestic work despite advances toward equality under Castro, were only too happy to hear the Chinese-made rice cookers were on their way.

The electric rice cooker is a treasured appliance in communist-run Cuba, where the basic diet is black beans and rice. The cookers were among appliances banned to save energy a decade ago when Cuba was plunged into economic crisis and power outages due to the loss of Soviet aid and oil. ...........source

[Cincinatus' Wife]

One would think that Chavez would be sending "charity" OIL to Cuba.

He has been.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cuba, where it is illegal to enrich oneself.

[Just mythoughts]

"Chavez does send oil to Cuba."


Yes, he does, probably how Castro was able to fund this "increase".

I am embarrassed for the NorthEast voting against ANWAR and taking Chavez's charity oil, as though they are in more dire straights than Castro's subjects.