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Ear to the Ground

Cuba to Fire 500,000 Workers

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Posted on Sep 13, 2010
Flickr / Les Haines (CC-BY)

Most Cubans rely on their government for just about everything, including a job, but President Raul Castro intends to change that. Cuban officials announced Monday that roughly 10 percent of the state-employed work force is getting a pink slip.

The government hopes economic reforms will allow for enough private sector activity to absorb the newly jobless, but in a country that employs 95 percent of its workers, skepticism abounds.

AP via Google:

The layoffs will start immediately and continue through April 2011, according to a statement from the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation, which is affiliated with the Communist Party and the only labor union allowed by the government. Eventually the state will only employ people in “indispensable” areas such as farming, construction, industry, law enforcement and education.

To soften the blow, the statement — which appeared in state newspapers and was read on television and radio — said the government would increase private-sector job opportunities, including allowing more Cubans to become self-employed. They also will be able to form cooperatives run by employees rather than government administrators, and increasingly lease state land, businesses and infrastructure.

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Napolean DoneHisPart's avatar

By Napolean DoneHisPart, September 15, 2010 at 6:52 am Link to this comment

Cuba is morphing into what it needs to in order to continue to live REGARDLESS what malarkey comes out of PROPAGANDIST MEDIA known as CNN, FOX, etc…..

Looks like Cuba is poised to be the model of state planning and semblance to a modern Socially Equitable Society ( minus greed and power-mongering at the top, which NO historically known country ever expelled nor can they ) which puts people before profits, unlike the mantra in this Neo-Roman Empire we’re enslaved by.

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Napolean DoneHisPart's avatar

By Napolean DoneHisPart, September 15, 2010 at 6:48 am Link to this comment

The Cuban people, economy and life is moving FORWARD as planned WITHOUT the input or distraction of the Empire…

Sooner than never, the Cuban people will be even MORE self sustaining than here… a shining example of hope in the face of tyranny for over half a century (  not Castro’s tyranny mind you ).

CUBA LIBRE!

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By ofersince72, September 14, 2010 at 10:58 pm Link to this comment

What we our government has forced on Cuba,

is coming home to us tooooooooooooooo…....

So all you gloating, better get you hoe, rake,
and gardening tools together…

Because the ones that drove Cuba to the brink don’t like
you anymore than they like Cubans…............
SCREW YOU AMERICAN CORPORATIONS AND THE LAWMAKERS THAT
SOLD OUR COUNTRY TO THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, September 14, 2010 at 4:10 pm Link to this comment

Good thing they can still have health care and can attend college if they choose.

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Fat Freddy's avatar

By Fat Freddy, September 14, 2010 at 10:06 am Link to this comment

berniem

Castro destroyed the Cuban economy by eliminating the casinos. The corruption of Batista caused the revolution, not a failure of Capitalism. Castro could have kept the casinos open and used the revenues to provide for his people. By the time he realized that, and reopened the casinos, it was too late. Plus, he had killed or expelled anyone who knew anything about how to run a casino. Nobody in the government knew how to do it. Besides, Western European Socialism is dying. Look at what direction Sweden has been moving in the past 20 years.

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By berniem, September 14, 2010 at 8:50 am Link to this comment

Mr. Ambriz: Are you a relative of the Batista family or do you already have a financial stake in the New Improved Cuba” that you seem to envision? Perhaps if Cuba would have been permitted to develop it’s own brand of Socialism along the lines of a Western European model instead of being forced into a protection racket scheme with the USSR thru the mechinations of the CIA, it may have turned out to be another Costa Rica(at least until recently). Give it 20 yrs. or so and Cuba will be more like Haiti than Miami!

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Fat Freddy's avatar

By Fat Freddy, September 14, 2010 at 8:31 am Link to this comment

Well, I guess they’ll have to go work for the casinos. Oh wait, they destroyed them.

I guess Michael and the “Jew in Miami” will be back there soon to work out a deal.


Seriously, there’s a right way and a wrong way to reform an economy. China got it right, and Russia got it wrong. This article explains why:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5469

The fact is, Communism and Socialism simply do not work.

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By Marco González Ambriz, September 14, 2010 at 7:38 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Another triumph of socialism. And for all of you blaming this on the U.S. or capitalism, I sincerely hope you’re not stupid enough to mention this to a Cuban unless you want a beatdown. Cubans are perfectly aware that Castro failed on his own.

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By morristhewise, September 13, 2010 at 6:28 pm Link to this comment

Hundreds of land speculators are on their way to Cuba, they are loaded with bags
full of cash rushing to stake a claim on Havana`s choice properties. Government
officials who realize that they soon will be out of a job are negotiating to unload
the bankrupt Oasis Panorama which was once the pride of Havana.  Soldiers are
ordered to shoot all looters, but they themselves are grabbing what they can
saying ADIOS AMIGO before jumping on to a Florida bound flotilla.

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Queenie's avatar

By Queenie, September 13, 2010 at 5:37 pm Link to this comment

This is terrible news. The U.S. has had its foot on Cuba’s throat for so long out of fear that Socialism would spread like some terrible disease.

It is bloody Capitalism that brings the plague infested blankets of “free enterprise”.

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By catauro, September 13, 2010 at 4:32 pm Link to this comment

I wish I can be a unemployed in Cuba

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By berniem, September 13, 2010 at 2:27 pm Link to this comment

Ah Capitalism! The system that drove Cuba to it’s knees will now grind it into the dirt!

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