Leticia Albert is a nurse at a Havana geriatrics center, pulling in just enough to keep her family afloat and worrying what the future will hold if her job will be next on the chopping block.
"What's coming isn't going to be easy. Where will I
go? Besides the concern, I see a lot of uncertainty," the 40-year-old
told AFP as the first of half a million government job
cuts got underway this week.
Although she complains about her low salary -- 20 dollars
per month -- Leticia worries her job is on the line at the Old Havana
Geriatrics Center that hired her only four years ago, thinking the
government layoff policy is based on job seniority.
Five colleagues were let go a few months ago when the
facility first started downsizing. And while management has yet to announce
more layoffs, everybody knows "the second round will be bigger," she
said.
"They've got to announce it at a meeting with the
workers, and that hasn't happened yet. But we know they're going to get rid of
a lot of staff."
Like thousands of other Cubans, Leticia's worries began
in October when President Raul Castro announced a series of economic
reforms to bring thecommunist regime up to date.
Pivotal to the changes is cutting more than a million
government jobs, or 20 percent of Cuba's entire work force, over the
next three years -- including 22,000 jobs in the health sector. Castro said
500,000 jobs would have to go by March 31 of this year.
The first culling of so-called "bloated
payrolls" dragging down the Cuban economy began Tuesday in the sugar,
farming, construction, health and tourism sectors, as announced
by Salvador Valdes, the head of Cuba's only labor union
CTC.
"We're not nervous, but certainly worried. It's not
something you can just ignore... nobody knows who it's going to touch,"
said Yanelys Coello, a cashier at the El Escorial cafe,
in Havana's historical center, where nobody so far has been fired.
Rolando Garrido, 34, is a doorman at the cafe. He got his
agronomy degree in 1995 and shares in the collective concern, but is somewhat
optimistic about finding another job.
"There are thousands of unemployed, but I'm well
adapted because I can work anywhere. In the worst scenario, I can always go
back to farming," he said with a smile.
On making his job-slashing announcement, Valdes said the
culling process was in the hands of a panel of experts from all walks of life
in Cuba. "We must avoid infractions, paternalism, favoritism and
any other negative tendency," he said.
Castro launched a media drive to justify the reforms he
said are necessary to improve the efficiency of Cuba's economy,
currently 90 percent controlled by the government.
The president vowed that no worker would be "left
out."
"In 2011... it's crucial we should continue dealing
with all our domestic problems with hard work, the right measure of harshness,
but without becoming apocalyptic," Castro said Wednesday from the pages of
the official Granmadaily.
Alexis Vargas, 42, is a bricklayer waiting for his local
union to announce its list of layoffs. But he is not worried.
"I've got a job anywhere," he said, referring
to the labor shortage in farming and construction.
As part of the economic reforms the Cuban Communist
Party Congress will debate in April, Castro also announced a significant
growth of the private sector; the government plans to issue some 180 licenses
for small- and medium-sized businesses.
If all goes well, the government by 2015 hopes 50 percent
of the country's five million-strong work force will have shifted to the
private sector, compared to 824,000 at present.