Cuba intros performance-based salary

The Government of Cuba has introduced performance-based salary for its employees, ending the system of equal pay for its workers.

The country’s President Raul Castro has given all state enterprises a deadline of August 1, 2008 to comply with the new system, reports IANS.

“The correct implementation of the new policy would enable Cuba to conform to the socialist principle of distribution, wherein each person receives according to his or her contribution,” Deputy Labour Minister Carlos Mateu Pereira said.

Raul Castro, who became Cuba’s President in February after holding the job on a provisional basis since older brother Fidel fell ill in July 2006, says performance-linked pay will boost efficiency and productivity.

“The overhaul of the compensation package for the employees is part of the improvement model that Raul as the then Armed Forces Minister had established in the military and defence-related activities 20 years ago,” Pereira said.

Earlier the President, while relaxing restrictions on Cuban citizens on buying consumer goods like computers and mobile phone, acknowledged the need to increase the average pay of the workers who earned the equivalent of US $17 a month.