Marching on their own? / Miriam Celaya

Marching on their own? / Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting

The official press has been announcing the parade this May 1st with a
newly added component to the "army" of workers that will march in
support of the revolution and socialism: the self-employed.

I've been reflecting on the theme (I'm showing an alarming tendency to
reflections) and I cannot quite understand the issue. Aren't the
self-employed a sector that represents private enterprise? Haven't we
been taught in school that private property is one of the "evils of
capitalism," a source of exploitation for the proletariat? Has the Cuban
system created a new species, the owner-laborer? Something else is
really bothering me: What union does a restaurant or cafeteria owner, or
a street vendor with a vegetable and fruit cart belong to? Will they
parade in favor of high tax rates and in support of the lack of
wholesale markets for the procurement of the materials they need? Are
they the new cuckolded and abused?

I can't begin to imagine, for example, the wealthy owners of certain
important "eateries" in Havana — and I beg readers to allow me to omit
names, I am not trying to point at the more successful Cuban
entrepreneurs — walking in the sun towards the Plaza Cívica, chanting
slogans for the proletariat, or singing that song that says "let's
change the world's stage by sinking the bourgeois empire." It's too
unreal, too perverse.

Nevertheless, this is Castro's Cuba, so, mocking the poet, don't thee be
surprised of anything. I know that many self-employed individuals, those
engaged in the crafts trade from the stands that occupy space leased
from the State, such as the once elegant department store Fin de Siglo,
have been ordered to "become members of a syndicate" — as has been
stated in the official press — including the payment of union dues and
have recently been asked to attend a meeting to sign their commitment to
attend the march. I haven't been able to confirm this fact, but we know
that it is also common practice for any state employee.

Paradoxically, employees of a restaurant or any other privately owned
business do not have the possibility to organize their own union capable
of facing an employer in order to defend their interests, though many
work longer hours than stipulated by the country's labor laws, can be
dismissed by their employers without the right to compensation, and lack
almost all labor rights, demonstrating that "self-employed unionism" is
another false formula of the system to maintain the oppression of
individuals beyond their relative economic independence from the state.

It is obvious that, when convening "independents" to this parade, the
government has the intention to continue to monitor the supply of
slaves, even the sector of freedmen, i.e., those who are in the first
phase of buying their freedom through their economic activity,
independent of the Master. Official control mechanisms deem important
that those individuals who turn autonomous do not become independent or
associate freely, and, at the same time, the government needs to offer
the world the impression that private businessmen and manufacturers are
aligned with the revolution, thus legitimizing the "renewal."

Worst of all is that there is a representative sample of the
self-employed who will lend themselves to the new farce. So then, the
self-employed will march this May 1st under the banners of socialism,
and maybe soon a "union of revolutionary self-employed" will be
established. This won't, even remotely, be a march on anyone's own account.

Translated by Norma Whiting

April 30 2012

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