Trabajadores (newspaper)

On Sunday October 22, 1865, the Cuban worker press was inaugurated with the release of weekly journal La Aurora in Havana, almost one hundred years before of the appearance of first newspapers in Cuba. This late appearance of a worker journal is explained by the slow development that has consolidated the worker class in Cuba, where it prevailed after slavery ended in 1880.

The newspaper had eight pages of letter size, press in two columns. It was directed by Saturnino Martínez, an Asturian tobacconist and poetry fanatic, and the Cuban litterateur Manuel Sellén. It frequently published articles that disturbed Spanish colonial authorities and most reactionary employers, because they denounced the subhuman conditions in some jobs, the low pay, and the insalubrity and congestion on works.

After the Ten Years' War—the first stage of the independence struggle that extended across 1868 to 1878—arrived an awakening of the Cuban worker movement, with new organization methods as union trades and cooperative and mutual help societies, besides the manifestation of the first ideas about class struggle. At the same time, newspapers started to appear, such as Boletín Tipográfico, in Havana; El Artesano, also in the capital city, and El Obrero.

The great relevance by then was the weekly journal El Productor, founded on July 12 of 1887, and considered as the first that advocated the class struggle in Cuba. Its first director was the worker leader Enrique Roig San Martín. Its pages expressed some ideas of Marx and Engels, the countless battles for the improvement of worker conditions, and their right to strike. It was the only publication in Cuba that unmasked the judicial farce in the USA regarding the murder of Chicago martyrs, an incident that originated on the traditional celebration of May Day.

However, the impossibility of worker journals to race with the self-called “great press” or “serious press” (which belonged to American partnerships, bourgeois and Cuban politicians) in the first two decades of past century anarchistic groups edited Tierra y Bandera Social, the Liga of Trabajadores Cubanos (Cuban Workers League) had in Alerta, their official newspaper; La Voz Obrera became in spokesman of the Partido Socialista de Cuba (Socialist Cuban Party), y Lucha de Clases, in 1924, with biweekly edition and directed by Carlos Baliño, was the first Cuban Marxism-Leninism newspaper. Years later there was Juventud Obrera (1929), that reach five years of life, so others like El Trabajador y Bandera Roja, both belonging to Communist Party.

Between 1933 –after the fallen of Gerardo Machado tyranny- and 1958, fallen of Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, could be quoted some data: February 22 of 1938, in a meeting presided by Lázaro Peña, it was constituted in Havana the Asociación de la Prensa Obrera de Cuba (Cuban Worker Press Association) which existed until 1948. Seven years after it was created it clustered more than 30 publications, with a monthly impression above 150,000 copies. In November's 1939 appeared the first number of the Revista CTC as organ of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (Cuban Worker Confederation), which constituent congress happened on January 28 of this year. It has a weekly periodicity and uninterruptedly it was keep until 1947, when it was produced the forced division of worker movement. Its director was Lázaro Peña, general secretary of trade union section; and its editor in chief, Carlos Fernández.

Sometimes from legality, and many other in pursuit and secrecy conditions, the newspaper Noticias de Hoy, founded by the Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party), knew represent and defend the interests of workers, like happened under Fulgencio Batista tyranny, since March 1952 until December 1958. Noticias de Hoy was target of governmental closures, assaults and evictions made by gunmen under government protection.

An important place occupied Vanguardia Obrera, secrecy journal of the Movimiento Revolucionario 26 de Julio (Revolutionary Movement July 26) where was denounced the unfair life and work conditions of proletariat during the bloody government of Batista. With the triumph of Cuban Revolution, in January 1959, this worker publication became organ of the CTC Revolucionaria (Revolutionary CTC).

In May 1960 circulated the Revista Trabajo, directed by Carlos Fernández R. and edited by Work Ministry, with the finality of exposed the Revolutionary Government projections in the working field. Early in 1962 stopped as trade union organ and handed over to Vanguardia Obrera again, in its third and last stage, since 1964 to 1966, with a biweekly frequency.

The need to provide the CTC of a national media outlet own gave life to newspaper Los Trabajadores, at a time that was raised as a priority the reconstruction and strengthening of trade unions, which practically had undergone a process of weakening of structures and organizations base.

In early June 1970, Osvaldo de Melo and Sara del Carmen Zaldivar had a modest tabloid project, conceived by the second, to the then general secretary of CTC, Hector Ramos Latour. Since then, Los Trabajadores –its initially name- would supply the void caused by the disappearance of Vanguardia Obrera and the Revista CTC, CTC and trade unions publications that for many years reported and guided to on key issues of union events. The first number, printed on the first half of June, was followed by another in the second half of July and one in November, also in the second half.

Los Trabajadores was making his way amid many difficulties: lack of material resources, premises for writing, printing workshops and editing staff. But that did not stop a small group of peers, with the support of the Unión de Periodistas de Cuba (Cuban Journalist Union), especially its then national organizer, Lázara Rodríguez Alemán, and worker correspondents volunteer movement arose, gave life to the first numbers, which came out in the small print of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba located in Virtues and Manrique, municipality of Centro Habana.

In doing redoubled their efforts people like Osvaldo de Melo, who as head of the Press Section of the CTC management functions performed; Sara del Carmen Zaldívar, chief information; Mario Castillo and Lucas Tarragó, journalists, and Rolando Montalván, Ángel Lazo and Rodolfo Amiama, photographers. In charge of printing was Guillermo Hernández, manager of the printing of the CTC, who had the precious participation of Orlando Núñez and the collective of that center and that of workshop workers of ancient newspaper El Mundo.

Its pages addressed issues related to the labor movement, sugar harvest work, internal life of unions, practice of proletarian internationalism and class solidarity. In them, for many years workers found guidance on labor legislation of the country, and help about what to do to fix problems and worries related to the workplace.

The XIII Congress of the CTC, in November 1973, save special significance for Los Trabajadores, because it was approved the resolution endorsing the need for its existence. For this called Lázaro Peña from his starring role in the revitalization of unions, coinciding also with the run-up to the great event of the Cuban proletariat. Although in the beginning was distributed free in meetings of workers and through the workplace, in November 1974 began the sale of Los Trabajadores, which was selected the populous corner of L and 23, in El Vedado.

Since 1975 left behind the biweekly output –sometimes monthly- for do it once a week, and the next year to two. With the same format, patterns and the number of pages, arrived in 1977, in July disappeared article and began to name Trabajadores, without the article's, which until then had been part of his name. Between October and November 1977, Trabajadores moved into the building that had been turned off after the fire of the newspaper El Mundo, in Virtudes y Águila. In 1978 the frequency increased to three a week and 2 December 1980 became daily. In 1997, Trabajadores created its own website.