II Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility in Cuba

Madrid, May 3-4, 2006

Workers Rights are Human Rights

GIRSCC, an international organization made up of several non-governmental organizations in Europe and the Americas, and the organizations that have participated in the II Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, hereby address the international community to call its attention to the systematic violations of human, economic, social, and labor rights that takes place in Cuba. We also request from democratic countries that they demonstrate their solidarity with the Cuban people who are subjected to conditions of economic exploitation and who are harassed when they exercise their rights to freedom of expression and association, and freedom to organize.

Cuba is a totalitarian country where labor enjoys no freedoms. Cuba systematically sentences independent union activists to long prison terms under Law 88, known as the Gag Law, for exercising their right to organize. Cuban authorities recognize only one labor union, the Workers Central -Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC)- an organization controlled by the State and directed by the Communist Party. The Party designates the CTC's leadership. In turn, the CTC declares in its statutes that it recognizes the Communist Party as the sole ruler of Cuban society. Also, the Cuban Government dictates highly discriminatory salaries and hiring policies in violation of workers rights as outlined by the International Labor Organization.

Various departments within the ILO have condemned the Cuban Government for violating duly signed conventions. ILO Case 2258 has been the basic instrument through which the Cuban Government has been informed about its own violations both in the body of Cuba's labor legislation and in its application.

Document 2258 demands the immediate and unconditional surrender of imprisoned labor activists, as well as the reformulation of the Labor Code to adhere to the fundamental Conventions and recognition of labor freedoms and the right to collective bargain. Also, the ILO has officially requested to be allowed direct contact, a request that Cuba's Ministry of Labor has systematically denied.

The 1995 Law 77 on Foreign Investment stipulates that workers who would be employed by foreign companies can only be hired through agencies established by the Cuban Government for that purpose. Foreign companies pay workers' salaries directly to those agencies in US Dollars or Euros, and the agencies in turn pay Cuban workers in devalued Cuban currency, and withhold as much as 98% of those salaries. Before being hired, workers are investigated to determine their political history; to be hired, a person must show adherence to the government. When foreign companies accept these conditions they become accomplices of the Cuban Government's abusive and discriminatory practices.

The Cuban Government also compels Cuban workers to spy on its foreign employer. Resolution 10-2005 issued by the Ministry of Tourism establishes that when dealing with foreigners, Cuban workers are forbidden to share "information available to them". Also, when negotiating or collaborating with foreigners, a Cuban worker must "obtain the required information from the individuals interested in investing or collaborating with Cuba."

In light of these circumstances, and because we believe that international solidarity and support, as well as recognition of democratic labor unions, are essential to attaining a free, just and democratic society in Cuba, GIRSCC and the organizations and labor unions that have participated in this 2nd Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility in Cuba on May 3 and 4, 2006 in Madrid

HEREBY STATE THAT:

1. After forty seven years of dictatorial rule, the Cuban Government continues to imprison, to harass and to organize mob aggression squads against independent labor activists and members of the Cuban opposition;

2. The Cuban people are systematically denied their inalienable and internationally-recognized rights to freedom of expression and association;

3. There are no free and democratic elections in Cuba that can guarantee workers independent representation free of government intervention;

4. Independent organizations are prohibited, and that Cubans who organize independently are persecuted, arrested and sentenced arbitrarily to long prison terms, and then subjected to sub-human conditions for upholding their right to form independent, democratic and non-governmental labor unions;

5. Present Cuban legislation hinders the practice of an independent and democratic free labor activism;

6. Not even minimum conditions exist in Cuba for enforcement of the 89 agreements signed by the Republic of Cuba with the ILO; the Cuban Government is the principal body responsible for their enforcement and implementation;

7. ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) and the ILO have repeatedly expressed great preoccupation with the labor situation in Cuba; both have condemned the violations of labor rights perpetrated against Cuban workers;

8. The Cuban Government has refused the ILO's requests for direct contact effected three years ago in order to verify, in situ, the conditions in which Independent Labor Movement activists must conduct their activities;

9. The Cuban Government has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), neither has it ratified the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, nor the Second Facultative Protocol of said Pact;

10. Although the Cuban State is signatory of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, it does not recognize the existence or jurisdiction of said Declaration, reason for which Cuba is temporarily suspended from membership to the Organization of American States;

11. Law 77 on Foreign Investments, and other disciplinary regulations, are in violation of the basic and globally recognized rights of workers; the operations of foreign companies in Cuba do not uphold the codes of conduct established in the aforementioned instruments, or those in other instruments, to wit: the European Union's Green Paper; the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Code; the ILO Tripartite Declaration on Multinational Companies; and the United Nations Global Pact.

BASED ON THE ABOVE, GIRSCC'S SECOND CONFERENCE ADOPTS THE FOLLOWING POSITION:

1. To continue with GIRSCC's efforts to persuade foreign corporations with investments in Cuba to recognize the universality of the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility in their economic relations and in the treatment afforded to Cuban workers employed by them in Cuba;

2. To develop and active campaign within the ILO aimed at increasing the level of international pressure placed on the Government of the Republic of Cuba, and to that effect, request from international labor organizations that they once again take up and submit before the ILO Committee on Labor Freedom the repeated violations committed in Cuba as stated and studied in ILO Case 2258, Report 334 submitted to Governing Body of the ILO in 2003, 2004 and 2005;

3. To urge international trade organizations and the regional and national centrals to address the Cuban Government and demand the immediate release of the eight independent union leaders currently in prison as well as the upholding of ILO Resolution demanding freedom of association and the Cuban Government's obligation to stop persecution and reprisals against workers and leaders who wish to organize into independent labor organizations;

4. To request from the Unity Congress of the ICFTU and the WCL to be held in Vienna in November 2006, that it adopt a resolution of solidarity with Cuba's Independent Labor Movement, that it condemn the repressive practices of the Cuban Government, and that it state its recognition of all the organizations that make up that Movement.

5. Due to increased foreign investment in this sector, to request from the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) that they be vigilant vis a vis Cuba in order to confront and denounce violations of workers rights, and to monitor that those companies abide by the same corporate social responsibility norms that they do in their respective countries where organized labor exists and enjoys full rights pf association and collective bargain.

6. To reaffirm GIRSCC's disposition to continue to investigate and act on the phenomenon of work force exportation, a practice that Cuba continues to implement in order to meet its political and financial obligations with third countries. It should be noted that these workers are exposed to absolutely perilous circumstances, and that the receptor countries are accomplices to these violations;

7. To call on all agencies and departments of the European Union that watch over and promote respect for human rights, that they may review the conditions of labor to which Cuban youth and children are subjected to in the island, and thus review the humanitarian aid allocated for cooperation with the Cuban Government, and adopt the necessary measures in this regard;

8. To request from the ILO that it conduct a thorough evaluation of child labor in Cuba, under its program for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor (Convention 182);

9. To schedule the III Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility in Cuba for the following year.

Madrid, May 5, 2006