“WHEN we say Cuba is not alone, it is not just a slogan. The warm welcome we have had this week from British trade unionists shows us it is something real.”

Cuban trade union federation CTC general secretary Osnay Miguel Colina says the solidarity of British workers “is not just important politically but in human terms. It touches the heart.”

Cuba has not just endured a 65-year-plus blockade, it is now under siege, cut off by US President Donald Trump from all oil imports, resisting an economic war openly intended to break its people’s spirit and force regime change.

As a trade unionist Miguel Colina sees how that affects ordinary Cubans at work.

“When you cut off fuel, you cut off electricity. And that doesn’t just affect the factories.

“It affects the transport people need to get to work. It affects the machines you use at work. It affects the distribution of products and everything you use to produce those products.

“In many factories it has meant changing the hours of the working day, or changing the work itself, what is being produced.

“Many workers have moved to temporary places of work or been redeployed to other workplaces. If their workplace can’t function at all due to the energy shortages they are moved into social or community projects, including rollout of the drive to solar power by installing panels, growing food in community plots, assisting the elderly, pregnant women or children in schools, street cleaning…

“Whatever their situation they are all guaranteed their salaries. Cubans are not sitting and waiting for the end of the crisis. They are working tirelessly to find workarounds and solutions, to make the very most of the resources that remain.”

Cuban trade unions are busy bringing workers together to discuss what can be done in each workplace and engaging with management on adaptations on top of their usual role upholding labour laws and representing workers.

All this is in line with the CTC’s agreement at its 22nd congress this year to strengthen trade unions’ role in economic management and in supporting workers retraining for new industries.

Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio are clear the economic blockade is meant to turn Cubans against their government. How has the situation affected workers’ morale?

“There is no point in pretending that things are not very, very difficult. There are blackouts. There are shortages.

“But the Cuban people are not going to surrender. Six million, two hundred thousand Cubans signed a country-wide petition asserting our sovereignty and declaring ‘Hands Off Cuba!’ On May Day, over five million demonstrated in the streets.

“The morale of the Cuban people is impressive. We will resist, we will struggle and we will win.

“And they show that not just by marching but every day at work, delivering on the main elements of the revolution — health, education, social security. You see it in the doctors operating by the light of their mobile phones in a blackout, in the teachers walking many kilometres to their schools to ensure the children are taught when there is no transport, in the farm workers toiling away without the aid of machinery.

“We will carry on working. As I believe our comrades in Britain already understand, it’s one thing when your problems are caused by internal issues; it’s another when they are the result of external aggression.

“We have difficulties, we are worried, we have a lot of problems to solve, but we are not surrendering.

“I have had such a warm reception here, including brilliant meetings with trade unions including Aslef, the CWU, GMB, NEU, RMT, Unison and more, and with TUC general secretary Paul Nowak, who reaffirmed the solidarity of the British trade union movement with Cuba. I feel here we have not just been talking to trade union leaders, but to comrades.

“There is a history of solidarity between British and Cuban unions, there has been tremendous support for Cuba through projects like Cuba Vive, which has raised over half a million pounds’ worth of humanitarian aid.”

What more can we do?

“Talk about Cuba. Talk about us in your workplaces and in your communities. Tell people about the daily lives of Cubans living under the blockade.

“Use the collective power of the trade union movement to facilitate closer relations between Britain and Cuba, fight for Cuba’s right to trade and exchange freely with other countries. Defend the right of British companies and businesses to trade with us. Help build direct humanitarian solidarity with us. Cuba Vive has converted solidarity into concrete assistance to hospitals, schools.

“Keep visiting Cuba. We want to learn from you as well as believing that British workers can learn from visiting us. We have a lot to share with each other.

“Keep raising Cuba at your trade union conferences and in branches, and in conversations with the British government.

“We have not come here to ask for help. We have come to offer you our friendship, and our wish to work together with you. Cuba is not alone, and the will of British trade unionists to defend Cuba is extraordinary. Venceremos!”