MAYDAY IN CUBA

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2023 :: RMTnews 24 The Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) sent 52 young trade unionists to Cuba for May Day and this year including myself, Niamh Ramsey of Birmingham Rail and Glenn Cameron from Inverness No.1. This provided an opportunity to engage with Cuban culture, witness the country's achievements, and demonstrate solidarity with its ongoing struggle against the United States on going genocidal blockade. The US blockade against Cuba was introduced explicitly to make the Cuban people suffer enough to overthrow their government, so that US companies could once again extract resources and cheap labour. The blockade seeks to prevent any company around the world from trading with Cuba of face sanctions from the US. This means the vast majority of companies globally choose to not do business with Cuba even though many countries, including our own, consider this type of embargo to be illegal. We have laws in place that state British companies have a right to trade with both Cuba and the US, but in practice we ignore our own laws and allow the US to dictate our foreign policy. The trip consisted of a series of lectures, agricultural work and visits to sites of interest with regard to Cuban society and economy. However, outside of this a a few things struck me as contrasting with the UK. Firstly, I saw no rough sleeping or homelessness in Havana or anywhere else on the island, and secondly, I have never seen so much live music and other performance art in such a short space of time. Art for art’s sake is something that the government clearly recognise in the education system. We saw many fascinating responses to Cuba’s on-going struggles. We engaged in agricultural work like weeding and planting seedlings as Cuba struggles to import farming machinery and fertiliser due to the blockade and many Cubans are involved in growing organic food on personal plots or as part of small collective farms that exist within and near to cities and towns. We were welcomed at the opening ceremony by Cuban Hero Fernando Gonzalez Llort, one of the Miami Five who was jailed for many years in the US for disrupting US terrorist plots against Cuba. We then received a lecture of the new Cuban Constitution. When first became active in the union, I remember people expressing concern about Cuba’s supposed problem with MAYDAY IN CUBA Rupert Pickering of Camden No 3 branch reports on a brigade united in friendship and labour