14ymedio, Madrid, 24 February 2025 — The workers of at least two hotels managed by foreign firms, the Iberostar Selection Parque Central, in Havana, and the Royalton Hicacos, in Varadero (Matanzas), have been demanding a wage stimulus for two years, which has been denied despite the companies’ profits. An article in the newspaper Trabajadores pointed out last week that the shareholders’ 2023 and 2024 meetings of both establishments “decided not to approve the creation of the Economic Stimulus Fund (ESF).” It is likely, the text ventures, that the same thing will happen in 2025.
“As expected, the discontent became a regular customer of two key facilities in tourist operations in the country, both for its weight in the amount of income in foreign currency and for the efficiency in operations concluded with profits,” regrets the article, included in a lengthy special dedicated to wage incentives on the Island.
That refusal of the companies, the report clarifies, is protected by current legislation, specifically the Foreign Investment Law of 2014, which “leaves it up to the parties to create said Fund.”
The complement in CUC to their meager salaries in pesos was one of the main attractions for workers in tourist facilities
With the Ordering Task*, which led to the disappearance of the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) at the beginning of 2021, the incentives in this currency were eliminated for the employees. It wasn’t something minor. The complement in CUC to their meager salaries in pesos was one of the main attractions for workers in tourist facilities. This helped them not only retain their employees but also stopped the theft of supplies, something common.
According to Trabajadores, based on the “monetary and exchange ordering,” workers were promised “an attractive monthly payment of 2% or 3% of the profits.” They “dreamed about” having jobs in joint venture hotels.
That payment happened again in 2022, although “a very low percentage corresponding to 2021 was distributed then.” The amounts, the text continues, increased considerably in 2023 and 2024, but both the Iberostar Parque Central de La Habana, belonging to the Spanish hotel, and the Royalton Hicacos de Varadero, of the Canadian Blue Diamond, did not grant incentives.
“Other joint ventures did award 3,784 employees of the Cubanacán business group,” the report states. Although for more than two years, “the union has been promoting the idea of looking for some way to protect the right to be rewarded for the wealth created,” says the report, “the matter is still pending solution, with the cost of a marked exodus of the labor force and a negative impact on the quality of tourism processes.”
The hope is that the obligation of the ESF in joint ventures will be included in an upcoming reform of the Foreign Investment Law, scheduled for 2026.
The distribution of stimulus payments from the profits creates “concern” during the first three months of the year
Also, says Trabajadores, several debates are taking place about the distribution of company profits, which must be done by March 31. First, two fundamental requirements must be met: “We cannot talk about wealth distribution if it has not been created before; nor should we talk about a distribution of income generated by it that is not compatible with the individual participation of workers.”
The distribution of stimulus payments from the profits, says the newspaper, creates “concern” during the first three months of the year, when financial statements are released.
Already in the last weeks of December, when the year begins to close, “people have more or less an idea of the “size of the ball,” as we say, about whether or not they will get that additional income. What they don’t know is how much, and sometimes their impatience about when they will receive it comes to the surface.”
Agility in this process, says Trabajadores, is fundamental: “An entanglement in the accounts, an uncertainty in the calculations, can lead to a delay in the distribution of profits among workers.” The trade union organizations, it continues, must participate in the decision-making of the management councils. “The ability of the unions to negotiate, based on the preparation of their leaders, will determine the success of the distribution of profits.”
In the case of the Iberostar Parque Central and the Royalton Hicacos, the unions have not been successful so far.
*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” [Tarea Ordenamiento] was a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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