Cuba’s draft Labor Code showcases modern buzzwords—telework, digital disconnection, parental leave, and even unemployment insurance for the private sector. But beneath the polish lie the same old controls: no strikes, no plural unions, and wages detached from reality.
Cosmetics Without Muscle
On paper, Havana’s 48-page draft Labor Code looks like a leap into the 21st century. It introduces telework, even from abroad, under certain conditions. It codifies a “right to disconnect” outside office hours. It reduces the mandatory social service period for new graduates from three years to two. And, for the first time, it sketches unemployment insurance for private-sector workers. These features are designed to dazzle diplomats and investors—like a modernizer’s checklist.
But the process behind them reveals the limits. As EFE notes, the “consultation” phase that runs through November is not collective bargaining. It’s a roadshow managed by the Communist Party, presented in workplaces with obligatory attendance from the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC)—the island’s single, state-aligned union. The Party approves, the Assembly ratifies, the CTC applauds. New words decorate the same old stage. The script is new only in vocabulary.
Old Monopolies, New Buzzwords
The draft code expands “participation” mechanisms and elevates the CTC’s role in grievance processes, but it protects the union monopoly. No independent unions are recognized. Workers can only affiliate with the CTC, whose leadership is closely aligned with the Communist Party.
Most tellingly, the right to strike is absent—just as it was left out of the 2019 Constitution. In any labor system, the strike is the fulcrum that makes bargaining real. Without it, “participation” is performance, not power.
Even the new promise of unemployment insurance for Cuba’s 10,000 micro, small, and medium private enterprises raises more questions than answers. Will benefits match those of state workers? What will coverage levels and eligibility rules look like? Who will provide the policies—the state insurer ESEN or some new entity? For now, it’s an obligation without a defined benefit, more promissory note than safety net.
A Wage Promise That Isn’t One
The code also gestures at “dignified employment”—safe workplaces, non-discrimination, equal pay for equal work. It promises “sufficient remuneration to meet basic needs.” But dignity is framed as an idea, not an enforceable right.
There is no mechanism tying wages to inflation or the cost of a basic basket. No calendar for collective bargaining. No indexation is applied to prevent pay from being eroded by price surges. The minimum wage will continue to be set unilaterally by the Council of Ministers. In short, the law speaks of sufficiency while withholding the instruments that produce it.
Even where flexibility is recognized, such as through pluriempleo (holding multiple jobs), control is capped. Daily working hours across all employment cannot exceed thirteen. On paper, this prevents abuse. In reality, it limits the survival strategies many families rely on in a distorted economy. Flexibility belongs to employers, not households.
Participation Without Power
The draft contains family-friendly clauses—expanded parental leave, anti-harassment rules, merit-based advancement, and gender equality promises. They look progressive. But without strike rights, union pluralism, or independent dispute channels, such protections are discretionary. Rights mean little if the only referee is the same employer-state alliance they are meant to constrain.
Take telework. Contracts must specify costs, reversibility, and control. The code grants workers the right to disconnect. Yet without independent representation, enforcement depends on management goodwill. A “switch-off” right is meaningful only if a worker can refuse an after-hours ping without fear. In Cuba’s setup, it’s a hope, not a guarantee.
The consultation phase illustrates the imbalance. As EFE describes, explanatory meetings are scripted, with presenters appointed and CTC presence mandatory. Workers are lectured, not negotiated with. The government calls it listening; employees know it as messaging.
Havana wants credit for adapting to the private-sector growth it reluctantly authorized in 2021. It seeks the optics of alignment with international labor standards, incorporating a sustainability clause here and a work-life balance promise there. But the fundamentals—control of wages, prohibition of strikes, and monopoly unionism—remain intact.
A Rebrand, Not Reform
The paradox is apparent: the more the state opens economic space, the more it restricts labor tools used everywhere else to claim a share of growth. Cuba has chosen to advertise modernization while holding tight to its levers of control.
Unemployment insurance is mandated but undefined. Dignified work is proclaimed but not enforceable. And striking—the one test that shows whether workers have real leverage—remains taboo.
Cosmetic reform may earn Havana applause in international forums. But for the nurse juggling two jobs, the coder freelancing for an overseas client, or the machinist watching his salary melt in inflation, the daily calculus will not change.
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Modernization is not a menu of features. It is a redistribution of voice. Until Cuban workers can freely organize, strike, and bargain wages pegged to the realities of their lives, the new Labor Code is not a break with the past. It is a rebrand—and the chains remain.