![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Notes
1 Peter Roman’s People’s Power: Cuba’s Experience with Representative Government (Citation2019) and Arnold August’s Cuba and its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion (Citation2013) supply thorough accounts of how Cuban democracy functions in both theory and practice. Juan Carlos Medel’s Cuban Democracy in the Speeches of Fidel Castro, 1959–1976 (2019) also offers some valuable insights into the theoretical foundations of Cuban democracy.
2 Practically all Cubans are a member of at least one mass organisation. For example, 95 percent of workers belong to the Worker's Central Union of Cuba (Thale and Boggs Citation2013: 7) and 90 percent of women are members of the Federation of Cuban Women (Telesur Citation2017).
3 General policy debates that fall within a particular mass organisation’s purview have also from time to time created occasion for them to convoke mass consultations, such was the case in 1994 when three million CTC members were asked to propose solutions to problems in their workplaces and the national economy (Roman Citation1995).
4 Mass consultations continued to be utilised within the confines of the mass organisations throughout this period, allowing their memberships, of which most Cubans are a part, to retain some influence over state policy (Morris Citation2014; Roman Citation1995; Lindenberg Citation1993).
5 The other two consultations were held for the “Conceptualization of the Cuban Economic and Social Model of Socialist Development” and the “National Economic Development Plan until 2030: Proposed Vision of the Nation, Axes and Strategic Sectors” in 2016. Both were Communist Party initiatives.
6 The Communist Party of Cuba is described as the “superior driving force of society and the State” in the Cuban constitution (Constitute Project Citation2019)
7 As of August 2021, the ration book remains a ubiquity in Cuban life.
8 The constitution’s “Economic Foundations” wherein almost all economic and labour provisions lie makes up only 12 of the draft text’s 224 articles.
9 In the pre-consultation draft, the clause on worker participation in economic activity was lumped into an article dealing with the state’s role in the economy reading, “The State's essential function is to plan strategic development and to harmonize economic activity for the benefit of the society. … Workers participate actively and consciously in these processes” (Draft Cuban Constitution 2018: 11–12)
10 In July 2019, not long after the ratification of Cuba’s new constitution, all workers in the non-commercial state sector were given significant pay rises. One of the reasons cited by President Miguel Díaz-Canel was the demand from many Cubans during the constitution’s consultative process (Yaffe Citation2019).
11 These international principles and commitments are not specified.
12 The Constitution Drafting Commission, acting on the advice of the popular consultation, was responsible for drawing up the finalised constitution before endmost approval by the National Assembly of People’s Power (Granma Citation2019).
13 For a more comprehensive account of the relationship between the CTC and the state, see Debra Evenson and Steve Ludlam’s Workers in Cuba: Unions and Labour Relations (2011)
14 In gaining their unprecedented labour rights, private sector workers found themselves newly entitled to minimum salaries, maximum hours, rest periods, paid holidays, and health and safety protections (LudlamCitation2014). All of these benefits are present in the draft Labour Code.
15 Private sector workers are also underprivileged in another key respect – union rights. The Code’s private sector chapter “does not specify how employees negotiate collective contracts with their employers in order to protect their economic interests, and it does not distinguish between the interests of the employer and the employee in this sector” (Thale Citation2014).
16 The Labour Code “fundamentals” provide all workers with “the right to work, equal pay, minimum salary, and non-discrimination (now including sexual orientation) … state pensions, maternity leave, unemployment benefit, accident benefit … {right to} stop dangerous work”. All employers are obligated to “eliminate risks, provide training and adequate protective equipment and clothing” and “workers have the right to participation at work through workplace assembles and trade unions. In the state sector, grievance and disciplinary cases go before labour justice panels dominated by elected workers. Private sector workers go directly to municipal courts” (Ludlam Citation2014).