U.S.: Nations should demand labor standards in Cuba

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/382480.html

The Bush administration says countries should lean on Cuba to demand higher labor standards.

Posted on Thu, Jan. 17, 2008

BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON --
The U.S. State Department is asking foreign governments to demand greater respect for labor rights from foreign companies that operate in Cuba, U.S. officials say.

Castro opponents say Cuba violates internationally accepted labor practices and foreign firms should not do business there much the same as when many companies balked at investing in apartheid South Africa. In Cuba, companies can't hire or pay workers directly but must go through a state agency, which pockets the lion's share of the wages.

The issue is controversial because there is talk of suing foreign firms in the United States because of the labor abuses. In the 1990s, Cuban dissident Gustavo Arcos proposed minimum labor standards for foreign investors to operate on the island, such as hiring directly without political discrimination and allowing Cubans access to hotels and beaches.

''We've talked to governments how they might use economic engagement to push for greater freedoms,'' Kirsten Madison, the deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said Tuesday. ``We've specifically talked to governments about the Arcos principles.''

Since Fidel Castro became ill in July of 2006, the State Department has embarked on a campaign to have countries bring more pressure on Cuba to enact democratic reforms.

''We hope that working in concert we can help define a shared expectation in the international community of what a transition in Cuba should look like,'' she told a gathering at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, noting most countries agree Cuba should free political prisoners.

FULL story at link.

and quit weinie wagging elsewhere. Cuba is NOT our concern. They all have healthcare and education, if nothing else.
The American dream, if I recall, was NOT working at Walmart for minimum wage without benefits...yet for many, that is all there is.

"American citizens... don't look at us, look over there instead."

Bush just wants the rich back in power.

BTW, things aren't so great for workers in the "former Warsaw Pact" countries. Solidarnosc didn't do a thing to defend workers against
the neoliberals and neither did any of the "free and independent" unions that supposedly exist in Hungary, the Czech Republic and the rest of the 'ol Bloc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Stalinoid dinosaurs fell, but that situation shows that "overthrowing communism" isn't really that great a deal for most ordinary people. The old regimes were supposed by replaced by social democracy, not hardline Thatcherist-Reaganist regimes. And the same thing will happen in Havana if Bush and the Miami Cubans get their way.