http://themilitant.com/2018/8201/820104.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 1 January 1, 2018
(front page)
‘Our system is based on solidarity,’ Cuban revolutionary tells unionists
Militant photos by Dan Fein
Griselda Aguilera, inset, speaks to United Steelworkers Local 1010 in
Hammond, Indiana, Dec. 7. Aguilera was youngest volunteer in Cuba’s 1961
mass campaign that wiped out illiteracy.
BY DAN FEIN
CHICAGO — “Our industries are no longer privately owned,” Cuban
revolutionary Griselda Aguilera Cabrera told members of United
Steelworkers Local 1010 at their monthly meeting in Hammond, Indiana,
Dec. 7. “They are run by the workers, their unions and the government.
The unions work with the government to plan production. The workers make
the decisions on safety and other work conditions.”
Tom Hargrove, president of the local, introduced Aguilera, who was the
youngest volunteer in Cuba’s 1961 literacy campaign that taught millions
of workers and farmers to read and write, enabling them to take control
of the direction of their country. The local organizes workers at the
ArcelorMittal steel mill in East Chicago. The 75 union members watched a
shortened version of the film “Maestra,” or Teacher, about the mass
literacy campaign before Aguilera spoke.
Workers in industry attended classes held in their factories for two
hours per day, Aguilera explained. One hour was paid as part of the
workday, and one was voluntary labor.
One union member asked Aguilera about wages in Cuba. “They are about
$100 per month, which is too low,” Aguilera said, “but they are higher
than before the revolution. And you have to remember, we don’t pay for
medical care or education. Rent, mortgage payments, and utility rates
are low. We are a poor country, impacted by the embargo by the U.S.”
After the meeting, three union members expressed interest in signing up
for the 2018 May Day Brigade to Cuba.
Aguilera spoke to hundreds of people at meetings in Milwaukee and
Chicago Nov. 29 through Dec. 9, as part of a tour organized by the
Chicago Cuba Coalition.
She spoke to two high school classes in Chicago, one at Pedro Albizu
Campos High School in the Humboldt Park neighborhood and one at Bogan
High on the South Side. Marilen Corres, the teacher who organized the
meeting at Bogan, had gone on the annual May Day brigade to Cuba earlier
this year. “The students got a chance to hear the truth about Cuba,” she
told the Militant.
The Loyola University Department of Sociology and Chicago ALBA
Solidarity group sponsored a meeting at the Corboy Law Center in
downtown Chicago Dec. 5, titled “Women in Cuba: Our Achievements and
Continuing Struggles.”
“We don’t experience sexual harassment like women do in the U.S.,”
Aguilera said. “Our system is based on solidarity, and hiring and
promotions are based on qualifications not sexual favors.”
“Why is Cuba so different from other countries?” Ananda Badil, a college
student, asked her. “In Cuba, women are respected,” Aguilera said. “And
we gained confidence through our revolution.”
On Dec. 9 Aguilera joined three doctors and a nurse from Cuba at a
public meeting. The medical workers are in Chicago as part of a project
organized by the University of Illinois Cancer Center. They have been
studying how to address the infant mortality rate in Englewood, an
overwhelmingly Black working-class neighborhood, which is more than
double that of the city as a whole. More than 50 people attended the
meeting, held at a neighborhood community center.
Health care is accessible and free
Dr. José Armando Arronte Villamarin described how the Cuban Revolution
changed people’s conditions of life, including health care. In 1959 “we
had 8,000 doctors. Half of them left the country after the revolution,
and the other half stayed in the cities,” he said. The revolution had to
reorganize things so everyone could see a doctor. “Infant mortality was
more than 60 per 1,000 live births, sanitary conditions were precarious,
and many children died of preventable disease.
“Today we have more than 85,000 doctors,” he said. “There is 100 percent
access to health care in rural areas, and infant mortality is 4.3 per
1,000.”
“It was very hard for us to understand the health insurance system
here,” Arronte added, to laughter, “because for us health care is
accessible and free.”
Both Arronte and Aguilera stressed that these changes were the product
of a revolutionary social transformation involving the entire
population. The Cuban people, led by Fidel Castro and the July 26
Movement, confronted the legacy of underdevelopment left by colonial and
capitalist rule in Cuba. When young volunteers went to the countryside
to teach reading and writing in 1961, many peasants they taught had no
clean water or modern sanitation.
“Part of the literacy campaign was to introduce education on basic
health and hygiene,” Aguilera said, “and to do so in a way not to
undermine the self-esteem of the people.”
All of the members of the Cuban medical delegation in Chicago had taken
part in internationalist missions to aid working people in other countries.
“There are more Ghanaian doctors in New York than in Ghana,” Dr. Berta
Maria Bello Rodríguez said, describing her experiences there. “In many
areas the only doctors are Cuban. In Africa we encountered diseases that
are no longer a problem in Cuba, such as malaria. We had to go back to
the books.”
“It’s hard to get insulin,” Arronte said, describing the impact of
Washington’s 50-year-long economic war against the people of Cuba. “We
were receiving it from a U.S. company that was based in a third
country,” and that supply was suddenly cut off.
“I was privileged to visit Cuba with the May Day brigade,” said Michael
Jabari Tidmore, who chaired the event. He urged others to go next year.
“Cuba plays an important role around the world,” he said, adding that
part of Washington’s unrelenting campaign against the Cuban Revolution
is to make sure “this information is blocked from getting out. This
blockade must end.”
Aguilera will be in the U.S. through February. Anyone interested in
organizing events for her to speak should contact the Chicago Cuba
Coalition at chicagocubacoalition@xxxxxxxxx.
Related articles:
‘I urge you, go see for yourself the truth of Cuba’s revolution’
Fidel Castro: Our principles are key to Cuban Revolution
Excerpt from book by Cuban leader Armando Hart underscores moral
strength of July 26 Movement
Che: Fidel spoke for all of us
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