Cuba paid debts with forced labor, lawsuit in Miami says
A Miami federal court case offers a rare glimpse at employment terms
normally kept secret between Cuba and the firms it deals with.
Posted on Thu, Jul. 17, 2008
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com
Each Cuban worker got two pairs of overalls, a set of sturdy boots, a
helmet and food commensurate with how hard he worked.
Their labor fixing up American cruise ships at a Curacao dry dock was
valued at $6.90 an hour. But the 108 Cuban shipyard hands who worked
double shifts in a joint venture between the Cuban government and the
Curacao Dry Dock Company did not get to spend their wages. Their
earnings were applied to the Cuban government's debt with the company,
court records show.
Documents reviewed Wednesday by The Miami Herald in an ongoing 2006
lawsuit filed in Miami by the workers offer a rare glimpse at employment
terms normally kept secret between the Cuban government and the firms
with which it does business. The documents appear to offer proof that
the government's joint ventures abroad sometimes involve unpaid labor.
Instead of a salary, the men got money for food and 400 Cuban pesos a
month -- about $18 at the current exchange rate.
Three former dry-dock workers eventually escaped what their attorneys
call a ''forced labor camp'' in Willemstad, Curacao, and filed the suit
in U.S. District Court in Miami, alleging the Cuban government offered
them up as slave labor to pay off its debts.
Alberto Justo Rodríguez, Fernando Alonso Hernández and Luis Alberto
Casanova Toledo -- who now live in the Tampa Bay area -- sued the
Curacao Dry Dock Company, saying it forced them to work against their
will while Cuban agents kept an eye on their every move.
Their boss at the docks: Fidel Castro's nephew.
In court papers, the Curacao Dry Dock Company says allegations it forced
employees to work 112 hours a week in substandard conditions are untrue.
In a sweeping denial of wrongdoing, the company acknowledged it did not
pay the Cubans and that managers held the workers' passports ``for
safekeeping.''
''Because of the significant debt owed by . . . Havana to defendant for
repairing ships . . . monies that defendant would otherwise pay to the
Havana shipyard for the provision of temporary workers from Cuba are
subtracted from the debt owed by the shipyard,'' the company's attorneys
wrote in a court filing.
The suit was filed under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreigners
to file civil suits in U.S. federal courts when a serious international
law has been violated. It was unclear how much the Cuban government owed
the company.
The court filing responding to the lawsuit added that the workers got a
per diem and ''additional benefits.'' Employment contracts show the men
were supposed to receive $1,500 a month for a per diem, but the workers
say they received only a $12 daily food allotment to spend at the
company store.
Court documents also show that the dock's production manager was Manuel
de Jesus Bequer Soto Del Valle, the nephew of Fidel Castro's wife, Dalia
Soto Del Valle. The records show Bequer's employment ended in April 2007
and he later sued the company.
Without detailing the cause of his lawsuit, the records show the company
settled for $125,000.
Asked what Bequer was like, plaintiff Alonso Hernández said through his
Miami attorney, Orlando do Campo: ``Manuel Bequer was a despot -- a
Nazi. He had no regard for our health or well-being and personally put
me in dangerous and hazardous situations. His only concern was to
exploit the Cuban laborers to the fullest extent possible.''
The men said they worked 3 p.m. to 7 a.m. shifts 15 days in a row. They
got days off only when the docks were empty, attorney John Andres
Thornton said.
In the suit, attorneys allege that the Cuban government and the Curacao
Dry Dock company formed the joint venture to repair ships as a way to
skirt the U.S. trade embargo against the communist nation.
Now Thornton said the Cuban government has enacted revenge on the
plaintiffs' families -- who are still on the island -- by refusing their
children access to day care and higher education.
The Curacao Dry Dock Company did not show up for depositions scheduled
in Miami last week, and its Boca Raton attorneys want off the case. At a
hearing Wednesday before U.S. District Judge James L. King, attorney
Stephanie Traband asked the court to allow her Boca Raton firm,
Proskauer Rose, to be removed from the case, citing irreconcilable
differences.
The workers' attorneys assert Curacao Dry Doce is trying to dodge the
case -- and a financial judgment against the firm -- by not cooperating
in the suit.
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