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REPUBLIC OF CUBA
1940 CONSTITUTION
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ART. 60. Labor is an inalienable right of the individual. The State shall employ all the resources in its power to provide an occupation for everyone who lacks such, and shall assure the economic conditions necessary for a proper existence to every worker, manual or intellectual.
ART. 61. Every worker, manual or intellectual, in public or private enterprise of the State, Province, or municipality shall have a guaranteed minimum salary or wage, which shall be determined in keeping with the conditions of each region and the normal necessities of the worker, from material, moral, and cultural considerations, and considering him as the head of the family.
The law shall establish the manner of periodically regulating the minimum salaries or wages by means of committees with equal representation for each branch of labor, according to the standards of living, the peculiarities of each region, and each industrial, commercial, or agricultural activity.
In labor performed by the complete task, it shall be obligatory that the minimum wage for a day's work be reasonably assured.
The minimum of all salaries or wages is unattachable, except in case of responsibilities for payment of allowances in support of other persons in the form that the law may establish. The tools of labor belonging to workers are also unattachable.
ART. 62. For equal work under identical conditions, an equal salary shall always be paid regardless of persons.
ART. 63. No discount not authorized by the law may be made on any wage or salary of manual and intellectual workers.
Amounts owing to workers for services and wages earned in the past year shall have preference over any others.
ART. 64. Payment in tickets, tokens, merchandise, or any other article by which an attempt is made to replace money of legal tender is absolutely prohibited. Violations of this prohibition shall be punishable by law.
Day laborers shall receive their salary within a period not longer than one week.
ART. 65. Social insurance benefits are established as irrenounceable and imprescriptible rights of workers, with the equitable cooperation of the State, the employers, and the workers themselves, for the purpose of protecting the latter in an effective manner against illness, old age, unemployment, and the other exigencies of labor, in the form that the law may determine. The rights of old-age pensions and death benefits are likewise established.
The administration and governing of the institutions to which the first paragraph of this article refers shall be the duty of organizations elected with equal representation by employers and workers, with the participation of a representative of the State, in the form determined by law, except in the case of that created by the State for the bank of social insurance.
Insurance covering accidents of world and for occupational diseases, at the exclusive expense of the employer and under the control of the State, is declared equally obligatory.
Social insurance funds or reserves may not be transferred, and may not be used for any purposes other than those that determined their creation.
ART. 66. The maximum working day shall not exceed eight hours. This maximum may be reduced to six hours a day for persons more than fourteen and less than eighteen years of age.
The maximum working week shall be forty-four hours, equivalent to forty-eight hours in pay, with the exception of industries which, because of their nature, must carry on uninterrupted production within a certain period of the year, until the specific regulation in these exceptional cases is determined by law.
Labor and apprenticeship is prohibited to persons less than fourteen years of age.
ART. 67. The right of all manual and intellectual workers to one month of vacation on pay for every eleven months of work in every natural year is established. Those who, on account of the type of work or other circumstances, may not have worked the eleven months, shall have the right to vacation on pay for a period proportional to the tinge worked.
When workers stop work on account of a national holiday or mourning, employers must guarantee them the corresponding wages for this time.
There shall be only four days of national holiday and mourning on which the closing of industrial or commercial establishments or those of public entertainment is obligatory. The remaining official holiday or mourning days shall be celebrated without suspension of the economic activities of the Nation.
ART. 68. No wage differential may be established between married women and single women.
The law shall regulate the protection of motherhood of working women, extending this protection to women who are employed.
A pregnant woman may not be separated from her employment within three months before childbirth, or be required to do work that may require considerable physical effort.
During the six weeks immediately preceding childbirth and the six weeks following, a woman shall enjoy obligatory vacation from work on pay at the same rate, retaining her employment and all the rights pertaining to such employment and to her labor contract. During the nursing period, two extraordinary daily rest periods of a half hour each shall be allowed her to feed her child.
ART. 69. The right of organization is recognized for employers, private employees, and workers, for the exclusive purposes of their social-economic activity.
The competent authority shall have a period of thirty days in which to admit or refuse to admit the registry of a workers' or employers' association. The registration shall determine the juridical personality of the workers' or employers' association. The law shall regulate everything concerned with the recognition of the association by the employers and by the workers respectively.
Associations may not be finally dissolved until a provisional decision has been made by the tribunals of justice.
The officials of these associations shall be exclusively Cubans by birth.
ART. 70. Official obligatory collective organization is established in the practice of university-trained professions. The law shall determine the form of the organization and functioning of such bodies, by. a higher organization of national character, and by the local organizations that may be necessary, in a manner such that they may be regulated with full authority by the majority of their colleagues.
The law shall also regulate the obligatory collective organization of the other professions recognized officially by the State.
ART. 71. The right of workers to the strike and the right of employers to the lockout is recognized, in conformity with the regulations that the law may establish for the exercise of both rights.
ART. 72. The law shall regulate the system of collective contracts of labor, the fulfillment of which shall be obligatory for both employers and workers.
Stipulations implying renunciation' diminution, impairment, or relinquishment of any right in favor of the worker that is recognized in this Constitution or in the law, even if expressed in a labor contract or in any other pact, shall be null and shall not obligate the contracting parties.
ART. 73. The majority of persons participating in labor shall be Cubans by birth as much as regards to total amount of wages and salaries as in the distinct categories of labor, in the form determined by law.
Protection shall also be extended to naturalized Cubans with families born in the national territory, with preference over naturalized citizens who do not meet these conditions, and over aliens.
The stipulations in the preceding paragraphs concerning aliens shall not be applied in the filling of indispensable technical positions, subject to the prior formalities of the law, and with provision that apprenticeship in the technical work in question be facilitated for native Cubans.
ART. 74. The ministry of labor shall take care, as an essential part, among others, of its permanent social policy, that discriminatory practices of no kind shall prevail in the distribution of opportunities for labor in industry and commerce. In personnel changes and in the creation of new positions, as well as in new factories, industries, or businesses that may be established, it shall be obligatory that opportunities for labor be distributed without distinctions on a basis of race or color, provided that requirements of ability are satisfactorily met. It shall be established by law that any other practice shall be punishable and may be prosecuted officially or at the instance of the aggrieved party.
ART. 75. The formation of co-operative enterprises, whether commercial, agricultural, industrial, of the consumer, or any other type, shall be subject to regulation by the law; but the latter shall regulate the definition, constitution, and functioning of such enterprises in order that they shall not serve to evade or abridge the provisions that this Constitution establishes for the regulation of labor.
ART. 76. The law shall regulate immigration in keeping with the national economic system and with social necessities. The importation of contract labor, as well as all immigration tending to debase the condition of labor, is prohibited.
ART. 77. No enterprise may discharge a worker except for good reason and with the other formalities that the law which determines the just causes for dismissal shall establish.
ART. 78. The employer shall be responsible for compliance with the social laws, even when labor is contracted by an intermediary agency.
In all industries and kinds of labor in which technical knowledge is required, apprenticeship shall be obligatory in the form that the law may establish.
ART. 79. The State shall support the creation of low-cost dwellings for workers.
The law shall determine the enterprises that, by employing workers outside of population centers, are obliged to provide adequate housing for workers, as well as schools, infirmaries, and other services and advantages in behalf of the physical ant! moral well-being of the worker ant} his family.
The conditions which shops, factories, and places of work of all kinds must maintain shall likewise be regulated by law.
ART. 80. Social assistance shall be established under the direction of the ministry of health and social assistance; this assistance shall be organized by special legislation, which shall appropriate funds to provide for the necessary reserves.
Hospital, sanitary, medical examiners, and other positions that may be necessary in organizing the corresponding official services in an adequate manner, shall be established.
Charitable institutions of the State, Province, and municipality shall offer services of a gratuitous character only to the poor.
ART. 81. Reciprocity is recognized as a social principle and practice.
The law shall regulate its operation in such a manner that persons of modest means may enjoy its benefits, and at the same time so that it shall render a fair and adequate protection to the professional.
ART. 82. Only Cubans by birth and naturalized Cubans who have held their status as such for five years or more prior to the date of their seeking authorization to practice, may practice professions that require official title, except as provided in Article 57 of this Constitution. However, the Congress may, by special law, grant temporary suspension of this provision when, for reasons of public utility, the co-operation of foreign professionals and technicians shall be necessary or convenient in the development of public or private undertakings of national interest. Such a special law shall fix the limits and period of the authorization.
In the fulfillment of this provision, as well as in cases in which, by any law or regulation, the practice of any new profession, art, or office may be regulated, the working rights acquired by persons who, until that time may have practiced the profession, art, or office in question, shall be respected, and the principles of international reciprocity shall be observed.
ART. 83. The law shall regulate the manner in which factories and shops may be transferred for the purpose of avoiding debasement of the conditions of labor.
ART. 84. Problems arising from the relations between capital and labor shall be submitted to committees of conciliation, composed of equal representation of employers and workers. The law shall stipulate the judicial officials who shall preside over the said committees, ant] the national tribunal before which their decisions are appealable.
ART. 85. In order to assure compliance with social legislation, the State shall provide for the supervision and inspection of enterprises.
ART. 86. The enumeration of the rights and benefits to which this section refers shall not exclude others arising from the principle of social justice, and they shall be equally applicable to all elements involved in the process of production.
ART. 87. The Cuban State recognizes the existence and legitimacy of private property in the fullest concept of its social function, and with no further limitations than those that may be established by law for reasons of public necessity or social interest.
ART. 88. The subsoil belongs to the State, which may make concessions for its exploitation, in conformity with what the law may establish. Mining property granted and not exploited within the period that the law may fix shall be declared null and shall revert to the State.
Land, forests, and concessions for the exploitation of the subsoil, utilization of waters, means of transportation, and every other enterprise of public service, must be exploited in a manner favorable to the social welfare.
ART. 89. The State shall have the right to be a party in all auctions or forced sales of real property and of things representative of values in immovable property.
ART. 90. Latifundia are outlawed, and in order to effect their disappearance the law shall stipulate the maximum extent of property that each person or corporation may possess for each type of exploitation for which the land may be employed, at the same time taking into account individual circumstances.
The law shall restrictively limit acquisition and possession of land by foreign persons and companies, and shall adopt measures tending to revert the land to Cuban ownership.
ART. 91. The father of a family who lives upon, cultivates, and directly exploits a rural property that he owns, provided that the value of the latter does not exceed 21000 pesos, may declare it of irrevocable character as family property as soon as it may be essential for his living and subsistence, and said property shall be exempt from taxes and shall be unattachable and inalienable except for responsibilities incurred prior to this Constitution. Improvements that exceed the sum above mentioned shall pay the corresponding taxes in the manner that the law may establish. In order to exploit the said property the owner may mortgage it, or give sowings, plantings, fruits, or products of the same as guarantees.
ART. 92. Every author or inventor shall enjoy exclusive ownership of his work or invention, with the limitations stipulated by law as to time and form.
Concessions of industrial and commercial trademarks, and other recognition of mercantile credits with indications of Cuban origin, shall be null if such concessions are used in any way for protecting or covering articles manufactured outside of the national territory.
ART. 93. No perpetual charges on property in the character of perpetual interest payments or other charges of an analogous nature may be imposed, and, furthermore, the establishment of such charges is prohibited. The Congress shall approve a law regulating the liquidation of the existing charges within a period of three legislative terms.
Perpetual interest payments, or charges established, or which may be established, to the benefit of the State, Province, or municipality, or in favor of public institutions of all kinds or of private institutions of beneficence are excepted from the stipulations of the preceding paragraph
ART. 94. It is the obligation of the State to take a census of population at least every ten years, that shall reflect all the economic and social activities of the country. The State shall also publish a statistical yearbook regularly.
ART. 95. The property of charitable institutions is declared to be imprescriptible.
ART. 96. Those areas of land given by persons of old Spanish nobility for the founding of a town or community, and effectively employed for this purpose, acquiring the character of a municipal government, though afterward occupied or held by the heirs or inheritors of the donor, are declared to be in the nature of a public utility and therefore subject to expropriation by the State, the Province, or the municipality.
The inhabitants of such a town or city, Who possess buildings or occupy lots in the settled part, may obtain ownership or possession of the estates or sections of lane! that they may be occupying, by payment of a fair proportionate price through the expropriating body empowered to transfer the said property to them.
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Last time this page was edited April 15, 2015
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