ABSTRACT
In September 2010, the Cuban government—through the official labor union (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, 2010)—announced plans to eliminate 500,000 jobs from state-run companies and institutions, roughly 10 percent of the entire Cuban workforce. The decision, made public in the newspaper Granma, noted that most of the workers will be absorbed by the “non-state” sector, a term that is used to refer to both private and collective businesses—such as cooperatives—as well as foreign companies and joint ventures. 1 The need to deflate state payrolls and expand the non-state sector was reaffirmed in the Lineamientos (“Guidelines to the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and Revolution”). This document, published in November 2010, was designed to guide a national debate in preparation for the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba [PCC] that took place in April 2011. 2
