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While Cuban workers struggle to survive on salaries that are insufficient to afford food, the regime has been hosting an international labor internship in Havana since last Thursday, attended by nearly a hundred delegates from the United States, Venezuela, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico.
The event, titled "The Latin American labor movement and political processes in building unity in the current context", is being held from April 23 to May 3 at the Lázaro Peña Convention Center and is organized by the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) together with the Latin America and Caribbean Regional Secretariat of the World Federation of Trade Unions (FSM), reports the official newspaper Trabajadores.
The program includes conferences, panels, workshops, and visits to workplaces, as well as volunteer work at the Abdala farm of the Hospital Dermatológico Guillermo Fernández Hernández Baquero, presented as an example of "the solidarity tradition of the Cuban trade union movement," the source indicates.
The event also pays tribute to the centenary of the dictator Fidel Castro and the 67th anniversary of the Revolution, which in nearly seven decades has failed to provide a decent wage to any worker in the country and has repressed them when they attempted to claim their rights.
Foreign delegates will also participate in the events of May Day, which in Cuba are not voluntary, as attendance is monitored and those who do not participate face labor reprisals such as loss of benefits or other penalties. In 2025, the parades mobilized millions of people, many of whom had to walk long distances due to a lack of fuel.
The internship will conclude with an international symposium on "the right of peoples to decide their destiny," a title that is particularly ironic in a country where the right to strike is prohibited, was not included in the draft of the new Labor Code of 2025, and independent unions are illegal.
The CTC, the only legal union in Cuba since the regime eliminated any alternatives in 1961, operates as what analysts and labor rights organizations describe as a "transmission belt" for the Communist Party, rather than as a defender of workers. The Independent Trade Union Association of Cuba (ASIC), which in July 2025 submitted a list of demands to the National Assembly demanding labor freedom and an end to the CTC monopoly, is illegal, and its members face harassment, arbitrary detentions, and systematic repression.
The reality that visitors will not see during their guided tours is that the average salary in the state sector is around 6,930 pesos per month, about 15 dollars, while a couple needs more than 45,000 pesos a month to cover basic expenses. The gap is more than six times between what is earned and what is needed to live.
These low wages are compounded by power outages lasting over 20 hours, chronic food shortages, and unsanitary conditions. The UN itself highlights the need for humanitarian assistance in 60 municipalities across the country. A dockworker from Cienfuegos succinctly summed it up a few years ago: "We have a silent strike that they are trying to hide".
Meanwhile, the CTC hosts foreign leftist unionists to show them what Trabajadores calls a political and social laboratory where Latin American unionism seeks to redefine its role in a changing world. What a laboratory.
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