The Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC) provincial conferences will begin in July, starting with the provinces of Matanzas and Cienfuegos, and will extend through October, announced Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, member of the Party Central Committee Political Bureau and CTC secretary general.
He explained that the process was preceded by the holding of assemblies in all grassroots union sections, followed by municipal conferences (there remain 18 to be held), until reaching the provincial conferences, with the participation of hundreds of thousands of workers, as part of the schedule of activities in the lead up to the 21st CTC Congress, the final sessions of which are scheduled for January 2019.
Guilarte de Nacimiento described the assemblies as strategic, as they offer a space for workers to present their views, concerns, and concrete proposals directed not only toward the internal functioning of their workplaces and union sections, but also how the union can mobilize and play a more effective role in the updating of the Cuban economic model, through sustained efficiency.
“Nobody like the workers,” he emphasized, can identify the reserves that persist in the areas of planning, the organization of work and wages, consumption rates, savings in energy carriers and other expenses, to ensure continued advances.
The CTC Secretary General noted that the Congress next January will see debates on the economy, as a strategic and central focus; the multiple ways in which foreign investment is developed; and forms of non-state management and the way in which the union deals with new types of workers.
(Granma)