The Fundamental Question page 2 of 4

The "invisible" income The increased space in the market, while it alleviated tension in the economic life of the population and normalized the relation between the supply of goods available and the demands of consumers, unavoidably introduced inequalities in incomes.  To be a vendor of meat in the farmers markets was much more  "profitable" than to be a professional in a state enterprise.

Nevertheless, non-wage forms of income were being implemented in state enterprises to increase, as much as possible, the income of more than a few workers, and to stimulate productivity in certain sectors of great importance to the national economy, such as tourism, nickel, tobacco, etc.  This is how the famous "jabas" *** arose, filled with products of basic necessity like cooking oil, soap, detergent, toothpaste, shampoo; and, in more than a few cases, agricultural products were distributed through this method as well.  This system was most successful in those sectors where the enterprises could obtain income in dollar currency, or in those that had succeeded in developing self-sufficiency in food. Many workers also began to benefit from so-called "nutritional reinforcement," and from transportation services provided by their workplaces, and moreover, from receiving clothes and shoes.

The tying of wages to productivity is a system that offers hope for income improvement to workers in many industries.

But with the passage of time, these improvements in real income, perhaps because they did not come in the form of money, were undervalued in the minds of the workers.  The needs that had accumulated during the years of crisis still outweighed these important palliatives.

Without a doubt, workers most strongly applauded a system of  estimulación (incentives) instituted in various sectors which rewarded good work results with  currency.  These incentives took the form of cash (Cuban pesos freely convertible to dollars) or magnetic debit cards; the workers receiving  these incentives could choose what to buy with them.  Contrast this with the "jaba" incentives (that according to generalized criteria had ceased to provide the incentive that they initially had): many times the people who received the "jabas" had to sell the goods that they "received" in the jabas to then go out and buy what they really needed or wanted. These "invisible" means of raising the income of the workers were -- according to specialists -- the only methods possible.  The few additional resources that were produced from the recovering economy were given, in this form, to those economic sectors where there had been a decisive increase in productivity, and those sectors which were best at producing dollar income for the country.  Currently, about two million workers benefit from one or several of these income improvements. From an individual's perspective, these complementary "incomes" could be regarded as insufficient, but they were simply the manifestation of a tense economic recovery that could not -- and cannot --give out more than is taken in, after discounting expenses, costs and funds for vital investments. Specialists have calculated that all these benefits (clothing and shoes, personal hygiene products, "jabas" filled with agricultural products, worker's transportation, and dollar stimuli) raised by more than 100 pesos the general income of Cuban workers.  But this calculation was made based on all the people that worked in the state system, whether or not they had received these stimuli; if the impact of these income improvements is analyzed considering just the incomes of the workers that receive these benefits, the improvement in income is even greater.

For Pedro Ross, secretary general of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) -- the Cuban workers' union federation -- improving the efficiency and productivity of enterprises through the system of "perfeccionamiento" is one important manner of resolving the dilemma of incomes, but not the only one. (As discussed on the following pages, perfeccionamiento is the Cuban term for changes in the management of state enterprises, which includes new types of wage incentives as well as modern management systems.)

_____________________________________________________________ ***"Jabas" were shopping bags of basic goods that were distributed to workers.

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Text (c) 2001 Bohemia Photos (c) 2001 C. O'Hara