The meeting that Miguel Díaz-Canel held on Tuesday with "representatives" of the Cuban private sector revealed a structural contradiction: the regime has expanded the rules for MIPYMES, but has not created the institutions that this sector needs to operate normally.
An analysis published on social media by the profile "The State as Such", from economist Pedro Monreal, posed the question that the official statement of the meeting did not address: "What regulation defines its legal status and governs its selection, mandate, and accountability? Do they represent owners, workers, or both?".
The text proposes two specific measures to address this gap: to create a chamber of commerce specifically for MIPYMES and to authorize independent unions from the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), which would be voluntary and have real negotiating power.
The proposal regarding business representation is based on a precise fact: in 2023, the Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Cuba had 1,226 affiliated companies, of which only 303 were MIPYMES, an institution originally designed to manage state foreign trade and not to represent the specific interests of an emerging private sector.
"A chamber of commerce for MIPYMES would not replace the Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Cuba; it would complement it. Its role would be to concentrate voice, services, and dialogue according to the particularities of a sector that needs its own business representation. Without a collective interlocutor, their legitimate demands become diluted," the analysis states.
A specialized guild—occasionally organized by sectors—could also provide real-time information on closures, losses, and bottlenecks, which would enable the design of policies with less trial and error and reduce the regulatory friction that currently discourages private investment.
The argument regarding labor representation is equally straightforward. Since its legalization through Decree-Law 46 in August 2021, the MIPYMES have surpassed 10,000 approved units and create a qualitatively different labor relationship compared to that of the state-owned enterprise: there is a private employer with a profit motive and employees who need to defend their wages, rest, and stability against that employer.
The CTC, however, was designed under a logic of "unity" between business leadership, the Communist Party, and labor organization that only makes sense within the model of a state-owned enterprise, explains Monreal.
In October 2024, the CTC created specific union structures for the private sector —unions and union sections in commerce, gastronomy, and services— while maintaining its centralized control.
The new Labor Code approved on August 22 —just three days before Díaz-Canel's meeting with the private sector— incorporates MIPYMES for the first time into a unified labor framework and introduces innovations such as mandatory unemployment insurance for private employers.
But it maintains the union monopoly of the CTC and does not recognize the right to strike or independent unions.
The analysis concludes that this leaves the model incomplete: "there are entrepreneurs, but no institutionalized labor counterpower."
"The worker of a MIPYME needs to defend their salary, rest, security, and stability against their private employer. This defense is not 'political opposition,' nor can it be replaced by union sections of the CTC within MIPYMES, because the CTC essentially serves to connect the worker with the state enterprise," the text argues.
The 176 economic measures approved in June 2026 eliminated the limit of 100 workers per company, the restriction of one company per individual, and opened new sectors to the private sector, including banking and exchange houses.
The institutional framework for representation, on the other hand, did not evolve at the same pace.
"If MIPYMES are to consolidate as a stable player in the reformed economic model, the relationship between workers and private employers requires adequate labor representation: a union that is not an arm of private management nor a 'transmission pulley of the PCC', but rather a representative of the workforce in the private enterprise," concludes the economist's analysis.
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