CTC Workers notes

Interview in 2000 between US-Cuba Labour Exchange and Leonel Gonzalez Gonzalez, Director of Foreign relations CTC

" We have been trying to reason as to how for us democracy menas real participation of the people and that the workers and the people might be consulted for the purpose of enforcing the most important laws in the country.....Let me explain, for example, how the process of the worker's parliement in Cuba took place in the most difficult moments of our crisis. And how in any other country in the world people would have reacted differently in such a situation in the sense that those decisions are made without consulting the people. In the case of Cuba, this process of discussion and debate was an extraordinary experience that corresponds witht the method we have always applied, but in those circumstances acquired a very special connotation."

"To think only that a woman for example, has no right to maternity leave....I don't know what this country is going to do with the new convention on maternity that has been recently endorsed in International Labour Organization which establishes a minimum of 14 weeks maternity leave. So if the U.S. comlied with this I think the U.S. women would receive a great prize, one that they deserve, one that they need. Lastly, women are half of humanity and the mother of the remaining half."

"Who are these prisoners after all? Fundamentally, African Americans, immigrants, Latinos, who of course, are the most exploited sectors, the most discriminated sectors, the poorest within the U.S....Cuban workers are also fighting for a new and fair trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, so we call on the North American workers to join hands and efforts to claim for a new trial where justice may prevail in the case of Mumia." Leonel Gonzalez on Mumia Abu-Jamal.