SANTIAGO DE CUBA, July 11 (Juan Carlos Garcell, APLO) – A Cuban- government-owned enterprise charges its foreign partners 8 dollars an hour for the workers it provides and then pays the same workers 8 dollars a month.
Workers from the Empresa Constructora Integral No. 3, a civil construction company owned and operated by the government, are working for the nickel-enrichment plant "Pedro Soto Alba" in Moa, eastern Cuba. The plant operates as a joint venture between the Cuban government and Sherritt
International, a Canadian company. Sherritt are the largest investors in Cuba; with interests in mining, oil and gas exploration and extraction, hotels, soy-bean processing, and telecommunications.
The construction company bills the Cuban-Canadian enterprise 8 dollars an hour per worker, but pays the employees on its payroll 148 pesos (less than 8 dollars) per month.
The workers say that they work overtime for which they don’t get paid and that the company threatens to fire them if they complain. Their government-controlled union, they say, doesn’t back them up.
The workers who talked to APLO for this story requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.
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