‘Today is Cuban workers’ day!’ a Cuban friend told me in late June, beaming at the news that all employees of the island’s ‘budgeted’ state sector would receive significant salary rises, commencing from 1 July 2019. Cuba’s budgeted sector incorporates entities which operate with a state budget and mostly provide services free to the population without returning revenue to the state. This includes health, education, culture, sport, public administration and community services. Every one of the 1,470,736 workers in this sector will receive the pay rise, at a cost to the Cuban state of over seven billion Cuban pesos annually. Simultaneously, 1,281,523 pensions will rise, costing an additional 838 million pesos a year and taking the number of direct beneficiaries to over 2.75 million Cubans.
Announcing the salary rise and outlining a set of economic reforms to follow, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other government Ministers framed the measures in relation to several factors. First, aggressive steps by the US Trump administration to strangle the Cuban economy by strengthening the US blockade, particularly through the spring 2019 implementation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, under which US citizens can sue Cuban and foreign interests who ‘traffic’ (engage in any way) in properties they, or their predecessors, owned prior to the nationalisations carried out by Cuba’s revolutionary government from 1960.
Second, determination not to return to the hardships suffered by the population during the Special Period of economic crisis in the 1990s. Third, the demand from Cubans and their organisations for a pay rise, communicated directly to the President and ministers during their regular tours of Cuban provinces, in recent Congresses of the Cuban Workers’ Confederation and the National Association of Cuban Economists, as well as during public debates over the new Constitution approved in February 2019. Fourth, the measure acknowledges the loyalty and commitment of workers who remained in state employment, often in the lowest paid jobs, defending the ‘conquests’ of Cuba’s socialist revolution.
Finally, the salary rise is a step towards a broader economic restructuring, comprising changes to the way salaries and prices are set, more flexibility in the planning process with greater initial input from workers, elimination of the dual currency, more cooperation between state enterprises and non-state entities and foreign investors and greater financial autonomy for state enterprises. These measures aim to boost national production and improve Cuba’s balance of payments, so to withstand the onslaught of US imperialism whilst advancing with the national development plan through to 2030.
Having announced the pay rise on 27 June in Pinar del Rio, Díaz-Canel participated in a two-hour live broadcast of the daily current affairs programme, the ‘Mesa-Redonda’ (Round Table), on 2 July explaining the measures with the Minister of the Economy and Planning, the Minister of Work and Social Security and the Minister of Finance and Prices. The following day, a second Mesa-Redonda with the same participants answered the public’s queries and concerns.
Cuba’s state sector employs over three million workers, compared to some 1.4 million in the non-state sector, which consists of cooperatives, private farmers, usufruct farmers (who use state land under rent-free loan), the self-employed and small businesses. Of the state sector workforce, 52%, or 1.6 million workers, are in the ‘enterprise sector’, consisting of productive and commercial entities which sell, trade and receive revenues. Since 2014, many workers in the enterprise sector benefited from incentives to increase productivity; linking pay to performance, removing salary caps, and providing payment in hard currency (Cuban Convertible Pesos are received by 60% of workers in the enterprise sector). The new salary rise does not apply to them, but to the 48% of state sector workers in the budgeted sector. Some groups of workers in the latter, including healthcare workers, received a pay rise in recent years, but others, including the education sector, were left behind. Workers in the political organisations of People’s Power and a group in public administration had not received a pay rise since 2005.
The new salary scale both raises the incomes of the lowest earners (the minimum monthly salary rises from 225 pesos to 400, up from 125 in 2005) and expands the wage differential between these and the highest earners from between 2.9 to 7.5 times. This aims to ‘reverse the pyramid’ so jobs of greater complexity and responsibility, requiring higher qualifications, receive substantially higher remuneration, serving as an incentive to work towards leadership positions. The average monthly salary in the budgeted sector has risen from 634 pesos in June, to 1,065 pesos in July; above the 2018 average salary in state enterprises, which was 871 pesos (up from 600 in 2014). Salaries in the budgeted sector are capped at 3,000 pesos; only those earning over 2,500 pay individual income tax. All employees will now pay towards social security; 2.5% for those earning less than 500 pesos and 5% for those above. Social security payments, including some pensions, were last raised in November 2018; pensions were raised again to a minimum of 280 pesos and all those with pensions under 500 pesos see incomes rise.
Challenges: avoiding inflation and increasing national production
While celebrated, the salary rise provokes two issues of immediate concern; the danger of inflation (rising prices) and the need to meet the additional costs to the state without exceeding the previously planned deficit (spending above revenue). Inflation will undermine the positive effect of the pay rise, increased purchasing power, to the detriment of all Cubans, not just the beneficiaries. In a market economy, inflation is caused by increasing the supply of money without a concomitant increase in the value of the goods and services produced.
Economy Minister Alejandro Gil explained that in Cuba’s planned economy, the salary rise should not cause inflation because: (a) the budgeted sector provides free goods and services, so increased salaries cannot push up non-existent sale prices; (b) most retail trade is under state control and subject to administrative controls, that is, fixed or capped prices; (c) the state is not raising wholesale or retail prices, taxes or other payments. Consequently, said Gil, the non-state sector had no excuse for raising prices. Prices in all sectors will be closely monitored and the public was urged to report ‘irresponsible’ and ‘opportunistic’ price raises to authorities to prevent abuses and speculation.
With inflation ‘repressed’, the danger is that as beneficiaries buy more they will quickly exhaust the retail goods currently available, generating scarcity. Already in May 2019 some new limits were introduced for basic foodstuffs purchases following scarcities blamed on the tightening US blockade. To prevent either inflation or scarcity, the Cuban economy must expand the supply of goods and services to the population. Minister Gil revealed plans to develop new and diverse services, like national tourism (up 13% since the start of the year), eating out and communications, including internet access and phone credit.
Although currently excluded from the salary rise, workers in the state enterprise sector can increase their incomes, said Gil, by producing more, but not by charging more. Local development will be fostered on the basis of local resources to meet demand without increasing imports (which bleeds much needed hard currency). Other measures are being designed to retain the hard currency which Cubans receive as pay or remittances, and which often leaves the country, for example when individuals travel abroad to purchase goods to bring back to Cuba. Instead of prohibiting this, the economy will be directed to meet the demand for such goods and services domestically. New financial services are being created to encourage savings.
The cost of the salary and pension rise for one year is greater than the 6.4 billion pesos social security budget for 2019 and the planned budget deficit at 6.1 billion pesos.* How can the state cover the additional cost without increasing the deficit? The ministers talked in general terms about redirecting investment funds from unimplemented projects and said planned budgets to all entities will be reduced by some 10%, obliging them to prioritise spending. Meanwhile, all social programmes will be preserved. Some Cubans immediately responded to the news by seeking (re)employment in the state sector, but ministers warned against a return to inflated state sector payrolls stating that only essential workers should be recruited.
Broader economic reforms
The broader economic strategy seeks to strengthen national production and state enterprises, the diversity and quantity of exports, import substitution, productive linkages, self-sufficiency in the municipalities, local development projects, investments, retail trade circulation, agricultural production, food sovereignty and implementation of the housing policy. Díaz-Canel talked about overcoming the obstacles and bureaucracy which Cubans refer to as the ‘internal blockade’ and breaking the pattern of relying on imports. Cuba’s principal imports are food and fuels, which drain billions in hard currency. A critical solution is to increase agricultural production and use of renewable energies. Moving Cuba towards food and fuel sovereignty is a political necessity given the aggressive, extraterritorial imposition of the US blockade. Gil said that the new measures aimed to ‘break the pattern of turning to imports to foster our national industry’; nothing should be imported that could be produced domestically. Cuban workers had long complained about this, he said.
To achieve this, state enterprises will be given more independence in planning, financing, investment, collaboration, and incentives for workers. In turn they must eliminate budget deficits and stop using budgets without proper cost assessments. The ministers talked about replacing ‘administrative controls’ with ‘financial and economic mechanisms’, that is, increasing individual material incentives for workers to expand domestic production, exports and import substitution, essential both to save hard currency and balance the books. Where surpluses rise, bonuses can take workers’ pay up to five times the average salary (currently capped at three times). These measures mean a shift from rigid planning which discourages innovations outside the plan. ‘Anything that increases efficiency must be evaluated for incorporation into the plan’, said Gil. Decentralising the plan implies decentralising access to resources, and so increased autonomy for state enterprises.
State enterprises whose exports exceed the plan will retain all or part of the extra hard currency earnings (after meeting obligations to the state) and can use those funds for essential imports or to pay other national producers. Similarly, non-exporting state enterprises can retain surplus revenues, after payments due to the central fund, and decide how to invest those, including in projects with domestic non-state enterprises and foreign companies. Restrictions on relations between these entities will be removed. Cuban enterprises which supply domestic products and services to foreign businesses operating in the Mariel Special Development Zone will be permitted to retain 50% of their profits. State enterprises will be allowed to sell excess production over their plan in the domestic market. Non-state enterprises may be facilitated to export through arrangements with state entities. Other incentives will foster municipal self-sufficiency and increased agricultural productivity.
FINATUR, an existing financial institution in the tourism sector, will provide investment credit directly to enterprises, outside allocations from the Central Fund, to reduce delays and bureaucracy in funding investments. Accordingly, enterprises will be responsible for paying off their own debt to FINATUR. Given US persecution of Cuba’s use of the US dollar, the utility of adopting a crypto currency for commercial transactions is also being evaluated. To prevent the ongoing theft of fuel, GPS will be placed on fuel transporters and the use of digital cards for the purchase of fuels extended.
By introducing more extensive market mechanisms into the Cuban economy, the reforms present risks to Cuba’s socialist planned economy; they are necessary concessions made in the context of renewed US aggression and deteriorating international conditions. The National Assembly discussed the proposed reforms in July. Díaz-Canel recognised the risks and the importance of the population’s support: ‘In the most difficult times, Fidel and Raul always went to the people.’ This was the essence of the revolution, he said, as the people were the source of wisdom and creation.
Helen Yaffe
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 271, June/July 2019
* However, as the salary and pension rises commence halfway through the year, the cost for 2019 is half the annual cost.
Revolutionary Communist Group demands: ExxonMobil hands off Cuba!
On Saturday 20 July, the Revolutionary Communist Group/Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! picketed Esso in Mayfair, London to publicise and condemn the decision by ExxonMobil (Esso) to bring lawsuits against Cuban state companies (Corporation Climex SA and Union Cuba-Petrolio).
ExxonMobil hopes to make $280m from the lawsuits, brought before a US federal court ynder Title III of the Helms-Burton Act which was activated by President Trump in May 2019.
The demonstration also drew the links between the struggle against imperialism and the fight against climate change. ExxonMobil spends $41m per year lobbying against policies aimed at tackling climate change.
An attack on Cuba is an attack on the working class everywhere. We will continue to publicly target companies and individuals in Britain that attempt to capitalise on Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.
