Many thanks to my (Labour activist) friend Chris for sending over this rather disturbing photograph he took whilst passing the headquarters of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) this lunchtime.
Yes chaps; that is a Cuban flag.
We shouldn't be surprised. Bob Crow does, after all, have a framed photograph of vicious killer Che Guevara in his office and is proud to host an "RMT Annual Cuba Summer Party". I do wonder, though, if Bob Crow and his merry band of brothers have ever taken a moment to learn the truth about the supposed Cuban "workers' paradise"?
Unlike in the United Kingdom, where the RMT's sporadic strikes frequently paralyse city centres and cost British business hundreds of millions of pounds, strike action is outlawed.
Under the 1995 Foreign Investment Law, all employment and wage bargaining must be centrally coordinated by state employment bodies. "Investors", according to the ITUC, "pay the agencies in dollars, but the agencies pay the workers the equivalent figure in pesos, pocketing up to 95% of their salaries". Wow, that's fair!
The only professional body in existence is the Central de Trabajadores Cubanos, a 'union' controlled solely by Fidel Castro's thugs. Debating with the CTC is a non-starter - unless one fancies a spell of "re-education" in one of the numerous gulags the Castro regime operates.
Take a look at the International Trade Union Confederation's (ITUC) annual survey of violations of trade union rights in Cuba for more - including information on the independent trade unionists jailed for, well, unionising. "Workers' paradise", eh?
Bob Crow and the RMT need to grow up.
