Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Momenta de Emilia Litella; 'No importa.'

Some comrades turn out to be more equal than others after all:
The egalitarian wage system Fidel Castro spent decades building in Cuba is no longer viable, plagued by low pay, corruption and waste that can be eased by paying workers more for better work, a top labor official said in an interview published Wednesday.

Carlos Mateu, a vice minister of labor and social security, said many government companies have already eliminated caps on salaries for productive workers and the rest must do so by August.

An end to wage caps could eventually lead to a true middle class by allowing Cubans to openly accumulate wealth. But it runs counter to the notion of an egalitarian society that ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro promoted throughout his 49 years in power.

The article in the Communist Party daily Granma ... said Mateu "underscored that there has been a tendency for everyone to get the same, and that egalitarianism is not convenient."

"That is something we have to resolve," Granma said, adding that the traditional Cuban pay system saps employees' incentives to excel since everyone earns the same regardless of performance.

That is "unfair because if it's harmful to give a worker less than he deserves, it's also harmful to give him what he doesn't deserve," the article said.

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