A worker shortage, obsolete technology and power outages hamper production
14ymedio, Havana, 12 October 2024 — On Saturday, state-run media released new data on the decline of the island’s textile industry. An article published in “Invasor” reports that, last August, school uniform sales were impacted not only by a shortage of raw materials but also by a shortage of workers at garment factories, technological obsolescence and the ongoing power outages plaguing the country.
The report was particularly critical of the situation facing factories in Ciego de Ávila and Sancti Spíritus that produce both school and military uniforms. Faced with a lack of funding, the have had to “get creative.”
To keep operating, Unidades Empresariales de Base (UEB), Trébol Productions in Ciego de Ávila and Cumbre Productions in Sancti Spíritus have started buying scraps of old fabric from the state-owned Servisa company. This includes anything that can be converted — whether it be old sheets, towels or tattered curtains discarded by the island’s tourism industry — into new articles of clothing for Cuba’s soldiers and school children.
The report was particularly critical of the situation facing factories in Ciego de Ávila and Sancti Spíritus that produce both school and military uniforms. Faced with a lack of funding, they have had to “get creative”
“Neither Trébol nor Cumbre has the authority or the hard currency to buy supplies. The lack of a fabric makes it impossible to negotiate with clients who are looking for uniform suppliers. These same clients have started turning to private-sector entities,” complains Trébol’s director, Maikel Abreu García.
In anticipation of the start of the 2024-2025 school year last August, the Ministry of Domestic Trade acknowledged that the shortage of fabric would force the government to regulate sales by grade level. 14ymedio found that, in practice, the process ended up looking more like the sale of package deals of basic necessities, known as “combos”in Cuban stores. Using their IDs, parents had to add their names to a list at stores and then wait before being served, assuming there was any available clothing for their children at all.
The island’s clothing and textile factories are a far cry from what they were several decades ago. In the 1980s they were in good health. Three decades later, they look desolate. Most of them do not even have half the staff they need to operate.
The island’s clothing and textile factories are a far cry from what they were several decades ago
Aggravating the crisis are low salaries. In contrast to what they can make working as independent contractors, or from offering their services to a private company, seamstresses employed by the state barely make enough to survive. This has led, in large part, to an exodus of workers from Cuba’s factory floors, a situation which has been getting worse for about ten years according to industry sources, as state media reported.
“This new opportunity (for private companies) has created strong competition, especially in the sale of uniforms, due to contracts with hospitality companies operating in tourist destinations like Jardines del Rey,” Abreu García explained.
In the early 1980s, before Trébol was an independent company, it was part of a larger operation based in Camagüey. Back then, its factories were packed with fabrics and seamstresses. “There were more than 500 in the entire province,” recalled Aida Torres Carmenate, an economic management specialist at the company. At that time, when the former Soviet Union was still sending money and resources to the island, she was one of those seamstresses.
Aggravating the crisis are low salaries. Seamstresses employed by the state barely make enough to survive
Another obstacle facing the industry is the obsolete technology of its factories. When machinery breaks down, staff must repair it as best they can. Some of the equipment has been in operation for decades, with little or no regular maintainance. The factories, which also lack the necessary spare parts and tools, have to be inventive, relying on hand-made parts to make repairs.
The country’s ongoing power outages are also affecting the industry. At Trébol, an entire factory that operated in Ciro Redondo was shut down after authorities decided to remove the electric transformer in order to replace a broken one serving Ciego de Ávila’s residential areas. “Electricity is the raw material we need most right now,” its director told “Invasor” with some degree irony. But fabric, the industry’s most basic raw material, is at least as scarce, if not more so, as electricity.
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