What part have unions played in the transition to a sustainable society?
Unions are involved in all the main decisions of the country because we are an important part of our society. With the US economic blockade and the collapse of the Eastern European socialist countries, we’ve been forced to become sustainable. We’ve spent 15 or 16 years in the Special Period [as the period of economic crisis caused by the collapse of Cuba’s main trading partner, the Soviet Union, is known] where we’ve struggled to cope without many of the resources we used to import. I remember the words of Fidel Castro at the beginning of the Special Period: “We have to develop our human resources, our brains.” Unions accepted this challenge and have been at the forefront of the innovation and creation of materials and processes that have had the effect of transforming Cuba into a country with sustainable agricultural and energy systems. Do you have any words of encouragement for Australian unions to take a leading role in the climate change crisis? Climate change is not just affecting
