Bahamas, Antigua to change Cuba payment system for medics

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Several Caribbean Community nations, including the Bahamas and Antigua, have said they will amend the payment system involving Cuban medical professionals working in the region to comply with a request from the Trump administration after a mini summit with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the past week.

Since taking office in late January, the administration has been railing against the current decades-old salaries system through which the Cuban government gets a significant cut of the earnings of professionals working in the region. Washington argues that this is a form of forced labor and human trafficking that, in effect, allows Cuba to circumvent economic embargo systems in place against the island, charges Havana has denied.

After a session in Washington with the prime minister of the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean (OECS), Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said his cabinet has agreed to change the policy after a thorough review.

Rubio and Trump had imposed severe pressure on Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders to change the system,.

The accusation of encouraging human trafficking had resulted in severe negative feedback from several leaders and high officials, especially because Washington had threatened to revoke the visas of any and all officials linked to the Cuban medical brigade program. Many, including militant Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, said they were prepared to live without possessing an American visa. The governments also contend that the Cubans are filling a critical gap among healthcare professionals, many of whom are — ironically — lured away from the Caribbean by western nations like the U.S., which are now threatening the existence of the program.

In moving to change the system, the Bahamas now joins Antigua in the 15-nation regional bloc as among the early nations to take action.

“What I can say to you is that we are in the process of renegotiating all these memorandums of understanding for labor out of Cuba, just like we are doing with other countries like the Philippines, where we have a number of foreign workers,” said ” the PM told local media on arrival back home. “That is not an unknown concept and construct, but now that concept is being looked at as an ingredient for forced labor, so we will address that. Anyone we hire, we will say, ‘Look, we will pay you directly into your account.’”

Leaders say the issue was raised by Rubio during their meeting, just as when Rubio had met in Jamaica with the heads of government of Jamaica, Haiti, Barbados, and Trinidad in late March before flying south for deliberations with the presidents of Guyana and Suriname.

Arguing that the shared salary system is not new, he said it will nevertheless be looked at to comply with modern interpretations of labor laws and regulations.

“Sharing an employee’s salary with a government could be perceived that way,” said the PM. “The issue of holding a person’s passport could be perceived that way, so there are a number of ingredients. With respect to paying salaries back to the Cuban government, I was able to say to the secretary that the concept is not unknown. I was able to indicate that all of my mother’s siblings, all my father’s siblings, were all engaged under that regime called the Contract where part of their salaries [was] paid to the British government and part was paid to them whilst in the U.S.”