AN AVENUE OF PALMS.
of work you get out of them depends upon the way in which you handle them. We find our men unusually distrustful because they have been so often cheated by their past employers. If their paymaster is a little late they jump at the conclusion that their money is not coming to them. It has taken time to win their confidence in the company. They do not understand how to take care of their own interests. Our unclaimed wage book shows that during the last two years many hundred men have not applied for all the pay due to them. Probably ten per cent. of the whole number of common laborers employed thus fail to collect their full wages. On our fortnightly pay-days fifty or sixty men fail to claim amounts ranging from one or two days’ pay to as high as $20 or $30 silver ($14 or $21 American). Of course such men are often imposed on, and a man who knows or thinks he is being cheated by his employer isn’t going to overexert himself in his service. An intelligent Cuban makes a good mechanic. He learns more rapidly than an American. It has taken me less time here to break in motormen than in the United States. In the last year or two we have trained most of our force of mechanics, repair men, and our armature winders. They are about as efficient as Americans.”
The head of an electrical supply house: “Labor conditions in Cuba have not changed materially since 1890. Cubans make efficient mechanics in our line of business. We also employ them in contracting work, such as bridge construction, so that our monthly pay roll is sometimes over $6,000. They are slower than Americans, but are less independent and work longer hours. In electric fitting we get about as much service for the same wages as in New York. A man who has had long experience with the working people here, and who knows their language and how to treat them, will not have much trouble with his employees, and will find them fairly efficient.”
A railway superintendent: “Spaniards are the future laborers of Cuba. But they will work mostly under the direction of Cubans. The amount you get out of men depends upon how well you pay and feed them. It is worth the money it costs an employer to provide and compel his common laborers to eat a substantial meal before going to work in the morning.”
The variety of opinions here expressed illustrates the fact that the man in practical touch with the labor question in Cuba usually has some aspect of the situation in mind which appeals to him from his own experience. As to labor efficiency, all agree that for manual labor the Spaniard excels the native Cuban. This is true of factory as well as field occupations. Cane-cutting must be excepted from the latter, for here the negro is the best workman; and in the machine shops, and some mechanic trades, where a certain dexterity of mind as well as hand is required, the more nervous and intellectual Cuban is at an advantage. There is practical unanimity in the opinion that the cost of labor is high, the only exceptions being in some trades requiring much skill and intelligence and where the men work under the direct control of their employer.
The emphasis laid upon the fact that the amount to be obtained from employes depends largely upon the way they are treated and the wages they are paid is significant, and it accords fully with the other testimony and with observation in different parts of the Island. At one place a gang of laborers was just completing what appeared even to the casual observer a rather scanty day’s work. The foreman looked up with a half-vexed smile and said:
“Their wages have been lowered 30 per cent., and no driving will get more than two-thirds of the former amount of work out of them. They simply shrug their shoulders and say: ‘Poco dinero, poco trabajo.’ Little money, little work.”
Beneath a most unimposing exterior a Cuban laborer generally manages to cherish a considerable sense of personal dignity and he resents deeply, however unperturbed he may appear, the rough way of handling that has come to mean so little to his fellow-laborer in the United States. Perhaps the unexpressed contempt with which he is tolerated by some Americans is resented still more deeply. In any case, the very efforts put forth by employers and representatives to increase the amount of work done by employes often have the reverse effect to that intended. Tactful management is often one of the most expensive assets a foreign enterprise has to acquire in Cuba. Cuba is one of the most democratic countries in the world. Nowhere else does the least considered member of a community aspire to social equality with its most exalted personage. The language, with its conventional phrases of courtesy shared by all classes, the familiar family life of proprietor and servant, master and apprentice, a certain simplicity and universality of manners inherited from pioneer days, and a gentleness of temperament that may be both racial and climatic, which shrinks from giving offence by assuming superiority of rank with others, have all contributed to render class assumptions externally less obvious in Cuba than in other countries where equal differences of race, culture, and fortune exist. The Cuban is naturally self-possessed. It is difficult to fancy him having stage fright. He is so imaginative and Tarasconese that he frequently confounds ideals with realities, and as his ideal of himself is usually an exalted one this disposition does not incline him to diffidence or humility. He is therefore apt to assume an artlessly familiar air with his employer, and to try to put their business relations, so far as their social aspect is concerned, as nearly upon a partnership basis as possible. With his manual services he bestows the gifts of his own discretion and judgment as gratuity, and he is thus enabled to amplify or modify any instructions he may receive to guide him in his work. These personal advances and well intended departures from what are called orders, principally as a matter of courtesy in Cuba, are received quite differently by an American and Cuban employer. The former resents them brusquely, often profanely, and thus sows the first seeds of misunderstanding that result in much concealed resentment and hostility, and unless he master the situation by great force of will and character, may occasion more serious damage to his interests. The Cuban or Spanish employer, understanding his man, contrives to secure his ends more diplomatically; but he never has a really disciplined force of employes. Organization and discipline are two of the most seriously lacking things in Cuban life; and they are lacking because of a certain timidity, a lack of self-assertiveness on the part of the officers of industry toward their men. The Cuban is capable of discipline; but so long as nothing else is required, he naturally prefers discussing politics and local news or comparing notes about their children with his foreman to performing more commonplace duties. His friendliness toward his employer is usually well-meaning, even if unwisely manifested. It is something akin to the easy, inquisitive, but sympathetic familiarity one finds in a New England village. Occasionally it can be turned to good account in securing the loyalty of the men. Two American retail merchants were interviewed in Habana. One was evidently reserved toward his working people. He reported that among several employed he had never had a Cuban he was not obliged to discharge for stealing. Another, who was conducting a larger business, and who had many Cubans in his employ, but who stood on terms of greater intimacy with them, reported that he had no difficulty whatever of this kind. Whether the difference in the experience of the two merchants was due to the reason suggested or not, it is certain that the Cuban is peculiarly susceptible to appeals to ideal motives, whether made directly or only by implication, and that success or failure in dealing with the workmen of the Island often hinges upon an understanding of this trait of character.