A more prepared union that mobilizes well.

We need a creative union movement that is a counterpart, that takes advantage of all its powers to make the right demands of the administration, that its usefulness is recognized and that it has leadership.

Only with a more prepared trade union movement we will mobilize better to comply with the production of goods and services, assured in Matanza the member of the Political Bureau of the Party and general secretary of the Cuban Workers Central (CTC) Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, when presiding here the first provincial Conference 22nd Congress in the country.

«Boosting the growth of food production would be the best contribution of the trade union movement to the economic performance of the country. There will be no better contribution than that,» he said. «We have to reach the final sessions of the 22nd Congress materializing the purpose with concrete results,» he urged.

«Agriculture can give us certain lights in the economic relief of the country, as well as the sugar branch», he remarked. Matanzas is a bastion in both sectors, he acknowledged. However, the contracting with the producers is substantial. When will the municipal agri-food self-sufficiency program really be achieved, he asked, according to a report by Trabajadores newspaper.

The question was answered by Carlos Luis Naranjo, delegate of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG), who summarized what was done in a period in which «three thousand more usufructuaries were contracted than the previous year», a hard task, he warned, because of how complicated the process becomes when the Dairy and Tourism facilities owe the producers.

Singled out in the report for inclusion among the 17 entities and 38 grassroots business units with more expenses than income, MINAG illustrated the alternatives that led the agro-industrial company Victoria de Girón to decrease by two million pesos at the end of November, the economic loss of 74 million with which it ended last year.

Alberto Suárez, director of this agro-industrial company, explained how, faced with the loss of their fundamental crop, they turned to fruits such as guava and especially to the planting of more than 40 hectares of extra-dense bananas, made possible thanks to the effectiveness shown by the structure of the labor collectives and the productive work and labor changes promoted by the union.

«The important thing is to do things better with what we have and to make savings,» he said. «We will tighten our belts to conclude the year without losses», he announced, after lamenting that the mango harvest did not yield as expected due to the weather and being unable to meet the export plan, that source of foreign currency that the economy demands so much.

Guilarte de Nacimiento celebrated what was done by the agro-industrial company Victoria de Girón, but admitted that this is the exception and not the rule in a country where there are more than 300 companies with losses, something inadmissible in the socialist state enterprise, he said. «Where this happens, the union cannot stand idly by.»

He noted that without the definitive influence of the organization it would be impossible to advance in food sovereignty, not with slogans, but with palpable actions, he remarked, when referring to the need to turn this objective into the main priority of the operation.

The good examples of what has been achieved here with two items such as beans and rice are evidence of what can be done in the territories to respond when it is not possible to complete the import of the basic food basket and respond with local crops, said Guilarte de Nacimiento.

If we do our part, we would contribute to the economy, to the prosperity of the workers and their families, because the offers would increase and the salary would recover its purchasing power, he estimated. In this aspect, he talked about the debts with the self-consumption, «the other great task that we must continue to promote», because it is true that a lot of land has been requested by the labor centers, but «they have not been put to produce in all the places», said Mario Sabines Lorenzo, first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party.

The Juan Gualberto Gómez International Airport was cited as the best reference point, with a farm and organopónicos, in a point that concluded with the commitment of the Mario Muñoz sugar company, in charge of delivering sugar cane to its counterpart Jesús «Rabí» Sablón, the only one of the four Matanzas sugar mills that will make sugar in the 24-25 contest.

The productive potential of Matanzas, essential in the income structure of the Island, was shown by the interventions of delegates from the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant, tourism and oil, the last two sectors that have been prevented so far from fulfilling their plans.

Precisely for the leisure industry, Amaurys Echavarría, secretary general of the trade union bureau of the Royalton Hicacos Hotel, asked for the floor to reiterate that for more than two years the workers there have not been able to benefit from the wealth created because the shareholders cannot agree on the creation of the Economic Stimulation Fund, the equivalent of the profits, according to the regulations for mixed hotels in the Foreign Investment Law.

The protracted solution to this approach has a palpable expression in the fluctuation of the labor force, affirmed Osmar Ramirez Ramirez, general secretary of the CTC in Matanzas province. «Despite the attention given from the union movement, we have not achieved the response that this claim deserves. Although in this case the law is not being violated, we have to look for a way to stimulate the collective with the best results in the last five years. A definitive solution is needed,» he urged.

It is necessary to shorten the time of the solutions, said the first secretary of the Party in Matanzas, a call that falls like a ring on all fronts, especially in a province that due to its commitment with the people and the country, it is necessary to work more. «There is a lack of hard work», he considered in his medullar intervention.

The concluding day of the Provincial Conference was preceded by the analysis of the behavior of internal indicators of the organization in Matanzas, urged to make a change in the completion of the cadres, and in raising the percentage of affiliation in the non-state labor population, where there were decreases, with a marked decrease in 2023, a phenomenon which, although to a lesser extent, also affected the state source.

Osmar Ramírez Ramírez was ratified as head of the Provincial Committee of the CTC, a body which recognized the performance of Rogelio Leyva Castellanos, who was released from his functions as a member of the secretariat to be promoted to other functions within the union movement itself.

Written by Eva Luna Acosta Armiñán.