Cuba Solidarity Aotearoa : International Workers Day

The General Secretary of the Cuban Workers Confederation (CTC) Salvador Valdes Mesa said that throughout Cuba the people parading on this May Day ratify that Socialism is the only option.

In the speech that opened the International Workers Day parade in Havana city, Valdes Mesa said that the millions of Cubans celebrating the date are happy for the recent Sixth Communist Party Congress, held in April, which set the guidelines to renovate the Cuban economy model and to improve life in the country.

He added that the heroes that made possible that today Cuba celebrates 50 years of socialism are walking along the young generations that celebrate the workers´ day.

The union leader said that workers, along the unions, are the ones in charge of the transformations and improvement of the economic model and society. To achieve both, he said, they need to work, save and be efficient and united.

He said that unity is necessary more than ever, that many new self-employed workers have been added to the Cuban labor force.

Valdes Mesa thanked friends from all over the world that came to this parade to express their solidarity with Cuba, and also those abroad that admire Cuba and its Revolution.

Cuba knows of this support, he said, because it had been under the fifty year long economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States upon Cuba.

Valdes Mesa concluded by demanding the US government to immediately free the five Cuban antiterrorists unjustly incarcerated in US prisons.

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Source Text. Pix

This year’s celebrations on May Day will be dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the victory against the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion and to the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).

The call was issued on Saturday by Ermela Santiago, a member of the National Secretariat of the Cuban Workers’ Confederation (CTC), during the 87th annual plenary session of this trade union organization.

Santiago said the occasion will serve to pay tribute to those who participated in that heroic deed on April 19, 1961.

She added that the Cuban workers’ movement is supporting necessary social and economic transformations that are decisive to improve and upgrade the model of the Cuban society.

“Economic efficiency, production of food, profitability, energy saving, the reduction of imports and the fight against indiscipline are some of the areas in which workers will make emphasis during this period,” she noted.

On the date, she added, tribute will also be paid to workers’ leaders such as Lazaro Peña, Jesus Menendez and Jose Maria Perez.

CTC General Secretary Salvador Valdes Mesa announced that, as it has become a tradition, on May Day the Cuban people will march in squares and streets in support of the Cuban Socialist Revolution