Final Statement

Corporate Social Responsibility Conference
Madrid, April 5-6, 2005

The undersigned, the 35 representatives of non-governmental organizations from seven countries who participated in the First Meeting for Corporate Social Responsibility in Cuba, held in Madrid on April 4 and 6, 2005, hereby

DECLARE:

Cuba is a country where a totalitarian regime rules, where there are no labor rights, and where the government retains in prison seven labor leaders who were sentenced in March 2003 to long prison terms during the worse wave of repression against dissidents.

Cuban authorities acknowledge the existence of only one centralized labor organization, Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), as stated in the Cuban Labor Code. CTC is controlled by the State and directed by the Communist Party, which designates its leadership. Ninety-five percent of the principal State union leaders are Communist Party militants or members of the Communist Youth Organization.

The government bars the creation and development of independent labor unions. Cuban law does not recognize the right to strike.

Law 77 on Foreign Investment, which dates from 1995, stipulates that the workers who will be employed by said entities can only be hired through the State employment agencies created for that purpose. Investors pay workers' wages directly to those State agencies in US Dollars or Euros, but the agencies pay the Cuban worker a fraction of those wages, in devalued Cuban pesos, retaining as much as 98 percent of the salary. Workers are subject to political investigation before they can be hired.

At the end of 2004, there were 364 foreign entities from 60 different countries doing business in Cuba. Due to the regulations mentioned above, foreign investors and their shareholders have become accomplices [of the Cuban government's] in the abuses, discriminatory practices and violations of international labor laws that take place in their companies.

There is consensus among the leading leaders of the opposition in Cuba regarding the future filing of lawsuits against foreign investors who remain accomplices of those violations.

The Cuban government holds a negative record with regard to the principal Conventions it has signed with the ILO, as evidenced in that organization's statistical reports.

After analyzing the difficult circumstances faced by Cuban workers and independent labor unions, and having analyzed the lack of intention on the part of foreign companies doing business with Cuba to abide by ILO Conventions, we therefore agree to the following:

1. To form the INTERNATIONAL GROUP FOR CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA, whose goal will be to promote respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, labor rights and the right of workers to organize, among companies who hold economic interests in Cuba, as well as real enforcement of ILO Conventions.
2. To issue a special call to international labor organizations, particularly sector federations and labor unions within countries with investments in Cuba, so that they express their solidarity and support toward Cuban workers employed in the island or abroad, and request from their investors in Cuba the same compliance with the fundamental social and economic rights of workers they exercise at home.
3. To launch an international campaign to persuade foreign companies that conduct economic activity in Cuba to consider the need to abide by ILO Conventions, as well as the importance of applying universally accepted and basic principles of corporate social responsibility.
4. To address these issues before the various institutions within the United Nations Organization, the European Union, the Inter-American System, governments and parliaments of countries with investments in Cuba, and request that they take the necessary actions to correct the present situation.
5. To advance the creation of a network of civil society institutions, non-governmental organizations, international entities, labor unions and business organizations that will support labor and economic rights and the right to organize of Cuban workers.
6. To conduct a social consciousness-raising campaign aimed at generating awareness about Cuban reality.
7. Taking into account the constant violations of fundamental rights that take place in Cuba's tourism industry, and specifically the 2005 adoption of Resolution No. 10 by Cuba's Tourism Ministry further restricting basic freedoms among tourist industry workers, WE FURTHER AGREE: To issue an urgent call to the World Tourism Organization in order to secure enforcement of that organization's Global Code of Ethics with regard to Cuba.