CUPE National President Mark Hancock is renewing our union’s call for Canada to stand with Cuba, after hearing firsthand from Cuban officials about escalating threats from the United States and the ongoing impacts of U.S. sanctions.
Hancock met with Cuba’s ambassador to Canada H.E. Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz and deputy head of mission Dany Tur de la Concepción in Ottawa.
For more than 60 years, the Cuban people have lived with intense U.S. pressure from an illegal embargo that causes severe hardship and scarcity. Embassy officials described how tightened sanctions and threats of an invasion are affecting daily life in the country.
“What is happening in Cuba is a crime. The U.S. pressure is absurd. This is collective punishment,” said Díaz. “Their objective has always been to destroy the revolution but what they are doing is harming the entire population. The Cuban people are resilient but they are suffering.”
Hancock shared CUPE’s unwavering solidarity with the Cuban people and pledged to keep up the pressure on the Canadian government.
“We won’t stand by while Donald Trump threatens Cuba’s sovereignty, and the right of the Cuban people to decide their own future,” said Hancock. “This is imperialism plain and simple, and it threatens us all. The Carney government needs to stand with Cuba and call out this blatant violation of international law.”
CUPE is part of a broad coalition calling on the Canadian government to publicly oppose and work to stop a U.S. military intervention in Cuba; speak out forcefully against unlawful U.S. coercive measures to withhold fuel and starve the Cuban people; and step up work with the United Nations and other countries to get fuel and other life-sustaining supplies to Cuba.
Hancock and Díaz also celebrated CUPE’s longstanding connections with the Cuban trade union movement. Our union’s 30-year partnership with the National Union of Public Administration Workers in Havana (SNTAP Havana) has been spearheaded by CoDevelopment Canada and CUPE BC.
CUPE and SNTAP members build solidarity and learn from each other through worker-to-worker exchanges, including yearly celebrations of International Workers Day, or May Day.
On May 1 this year, CUPE mobilized in Havana with more than half a million Cubans as well as trade unionists and activists from around the world to oppose the illegal and cruel U.S. blockade.
After the mobilization, the delegation joined 700 trade unionists at an international solidarity conference. National Young Workers’ Committee member Keenan Aylwin shared CUPE’s solidarity with conference participants, reaffirming our union’s commitment to internationalism, workers’ rights, and the defence of Cuban sovereignty against ongoing U.S. aggression.
