In addition to taking action aimed at resolving the company’s immediate financial future, the government announced its intention of imposing the job losses outlined in the Chiappy Plan. The workers, having been disappointed by the response of their trade union in 1949, set up a rank-and-file–based comité de lucha (strike committee) that called a strike at the end of June 1953.16 The government responded with military intervention and decreed that all who did not return to work immediately would be dismissed. Javier Bolaños, national president of the Hermandad Ferroviaria, ordered a return to work saying that he would do everything necessary to ensure that the reduction in staff would be “strictly limited to the numbers that the company required.”17 On July 26, an armed group led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and, under cover of the resulting repression, the authorities managed to enforce the return-to-work order and forced further layoffs in August. There is no surviving evidence of workers’ reaction to the Moncada attack; we have already seen the hostile reaction of the PSP.18 and it is likely that the outcome did not predispose the railway workers to support Castro. Its victory over the FFCC Unidos workers left the government free to deal with the problems of FFCC Consolidados. However, before doing so, Batista managed to improve his position through the elections he called for November 1954. Despite a high level of fraud and the withdrawal at the last minute of his only rival, these elections gave the government a certain level of legitimacy, at least in the eyes of international diplomacy, with the British ambassador describing Batista as “the type of president best suited to the country.”19 Once the 1954 elections were out of the way, the regime felt free to address the industrial issues confronting it, starting with the railways.
The financial problems of the Ferrocarriles Consolidados, though nowhere near as great as those of FFCC Unidos, were far from insignificant, with annual losses averaging $2.5 million. From the start of the economic downturn that resulted from the drop in sugar prices in 1953, the owners had been proposing wage cuts based on the government’s decree number 1155, which gave the company the right to set wages according to the economic situation. The company was faced by a trade union organization with a long tradition of militancy and its proposals were met with an outcry from the workers, which forced a delay that was financed by a government loan.20 Immediately following the November 1954 elections, FFCC Consolidados announced 1,550 redundancies and a 20 percent wage cut to be implemented from December 1, 1954.21 The office workers in Camagüey, mainly women, were the first to receive the news as they would have to administer the cuts. They immediately walked out on strike. Some went down to the depot and the workshop, where their action was swiftly joined by the drivers and engineers. Others produced leaflets and posters and took to the streets of Camagüey in an impromptu demonstration, which received considerable support in a town that relied on the railway yards for much of its prosperity.22 The wage cuts and redundancies were aimed mainly at the operating staff, and so the actions of the administrative workers demonstrate a high level of principled solidarity, although it is also likely that they would find family and friends among the workers under attack. As word spread, the action soon extended to the rest of the region, with a large street demonstration bringing the center of Guantánamo to a standstill.23 The following day, the workers reported for work but initiated a paso de jicotea,24 a work slowdown that caused widespread disruption to the service.25 Taken aback by the level of resistance, the government declared a truce, suspended the cuts, set up a commission of inquiry with trade union and employer representation, and gave the company a further loan.26
FFCC Consolidados also owned four bus companies operating in Santiago de Cuba: La Cubana, La Cubanita, La Criolla, and La Mambisa. It tried to use the period of the truce to impose cost-saving measures by locking out the workers in these companies. Many of their colleagues in the other two bus companies in the city withdrew their labor in solidarity; the strike in La Oriental was solid, but only partial on Autobuses Modelos. The army started rounding up drivers and forcing them to take out their buses. In protest, a number of drivers occupied their local union offices and started a hunger strike but were soon evicted by the police. The police intervention was said to be at the request of Prisciliano Falcón, a leading mujalista official in Santiago. The hunger strike then moved to the offices of Delegación 12 of the railway union and continued for seventy-two hours, after which the company backed down, the lockout was suspended, and arrears of salary were paid.27
The company also used the railway truce for an extensive press campaign, which consisted of newspaper advertisements, press statements, and carefully placed interviews that argued that railway workers were being paid for hours they did not work and that wages had risen much faster than receipts.28 One advertisement asserted that for every peso of income, the company expended one peso and 23 cents, of which 91 cents was in wage costs. In particular, the company complained that it was not benefiting from its modernization program, giving the example that it only took ten hours to get from Santa Clara to Santiago, but the crews were still paid for the twenty hours it had taken before the company had invested shareholders’ money for infrastructure improvements.29 In this last argument, we see encapsulated the employers’ position on productivity: having invested money for technological improvements, they expected their wage bill to decrease. However, with little prospect of other jobs, the majority of the workers saw no reason why they should have their staffing levels or pay reduced in order to maintain or increase profit margins, a classic dispute about who should benefit from technological progress. There was little room for compromise between these two entrenched positions.
The railway workers were not idle during the truce period either, setting up a Comisión de Propaganda y Finanzas (Finance and Propaganda Committee) to coordinate the resistance. This body organized some short strikes in the Guantánamo region.30 Having access to typewriters and duplicating machines, as well as the skills to use them, the women in the administration took a significant role in the production of propaganda material. When the truce ended on January 20, the company announced that it would withhold 35 to 40 percent of the workers’ wages, suspend paid holidays, and make other similar economy measures.31 As soon as the announcement was made, the Camagüey office workers again demonstrated, loudly proclaiming that they would not implement the cuts.32 Despite government intervention to postpone the problem again, a move greeted as a victory by the CTC bureaucracy, the rail workers themselves did not trust the government and walked out on February 3.33 The strike spread throughout the network, with many violent confrontations between the police, army, and striking workers, along with extensive solidarity actions by workers in other trades. Carta Semanal reports that in Morón, local bus and taxi drivers went on solidarity strike and a women’s support group was set up in the town.34 A large number of neighborhood support networks were set up by the female relatives of railwaymen, helped by the women from the offices, similar to the women’s support groups of the British miners’ strike of 1984–85. Women’s groups would also be set up by the relatives of dockers and sugar workers