Spanish hoteliers denounced for their collusion with Cuban dictatorship and abusive labor practices

From our Bureau of Great Moments in the History of Apartheid Tourism with some assistance from our Bureau of 21st Century Neocolonialism

Castro, Inc.’s apartheid tourist industry is its largest slave-labor enterprise, far greater than its slave doctor program. Those who work for all foreign-built hotels –regardless of the nation involved — are paid wages commensurate with wages in Europe or North America, that is, with wages in the foreign nations in which the hotel firms are based.

But the workers are never paid directly. Their wages go to Castro, Inc., which then taxes said wages at an exorbitant rate, around 90 percent, and the workers only get about 10 percent of their salary.

This has been going on for many years under the radar, so to speak. While the slave doctors do get considerable attention in news stories, the slaves who work in hotels have been ignored.

Finally, a non-government organization based in Madrid has denounced this shameful exploitation. Will this denunciation bring about any change? You know the answer. No. But quixotic gestures of this sort have a strange value of their own.

Loosely translated from Marti Noticias

The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) alerted Spanish tourism companies present in Cuba on Monday that their labor contracting practices “violate the conventions” of the International Labor Organization and others referring to the rights of workers.

“The direct hiring of the employee by the investing/operating company is not carried out, which affects the exercise of labor rights by the workers against who their real counterpart is,” the Madrid-based OCDH said in a statement.

And they are paid “through intermediation agencies of the island’s government, who steal most of the wages from the workers,” he said.

In a letter sent to those companies, which are not specified in the statement, the NGO considers direct payment to Cuban employees a “moral imperative”, and “not through government intermediation agencies.”

“In 2017 – recalls the OCDH -, the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament included in a non-law resolution a proposal from the OCDH that consisted of a call to European companies that operate in Cuba, especially those that receive credits or any financial assistance from public sources, to apply the same labor and ethical standards required in their countries of origin”.

According to the OCDH, “it is about putting pressure on the Cuban regime to change this humiliating situation, which would not be possible or acceptable in Spain or in the European Union.”

“Every day that passes —and this has been the case for several decades now— the situation of Cuban workers worsens,” denounces the NGO, “and also the image of these companies, from the point of view of human rights and corporate social responsibility “.

Continue reading HERE in Spanish (includes video from OCDH)