AP: Cuban union leader: Layoffs going slowly

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110214/AP05/302149880

By PAUL HAVEN « Business AP

HAVANA (AP) - Cuban government and union officials are acknowledging for the first time that a drive to fire half a million unneeded state workers has gotten off to a slow start, due to a lack of communication within the Labor Ministry and incompetence among the thousands of commissions set up to decide who gets the ax.

Jose Manuel Castanedo, the top union leader for the capital, Havana, told a key labor assembly that the delay has been exacerbated by disagreements between the union and administrators at the various state-run entities where the layoffs are to take place. Labor Minister Margarita Gonzalez added that unspecified mistakes by the commissions have often frozen the process.

The closed-door weekend assembly was reported Monday by Trabajadores, the official newspaper of the 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation. It is the only labor organization allowed on the communist-ruled island.

"When procedural errors are made, everything must start again from the beginning, no matter how many workers are involved," the newspaper said.

President Raul Castro announced the layoffs as part of a major overhaul of the Cuban economy, saying the state could no longer afford to pay people who didn't work. The firings amount to about one-tenth of the island's labor force.

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