By Julio Fonseca, Samantha Hislop and Isaac Saney
Recent reports from CBC News have revived long-standing and misleading allegations that the Cuban government “confiscates” the wages of Cuban professionals working abroad – this time targeting Cuban specialists employed in Canada through joint ventures such as those between Cuba’s state nickel company and Sherritt International.
These claims – largely based on anonymous testimonies and ideologically biased sources – grossly distort the principles and practices underpinning Cuba’s international labour arrangements.
Far from being an exploitative or coercive system, the Cuban approach reflects a profoundly different social contract: one rooted in solidarity, collective responsibility and the redistribution of wealth to sustain universal access to education, healthcare and social welfare.
Collective contribution, not confiscation
The central falsehood in the CBC story lies in framing Cuba’s policy of wage contribution as “confiscation.” Cuban professionals working abroad – whether in health, education or industry – operate under agreements in which a portion of their earnings contributes to the country’s social development.
This system is transparent and grounded in Cuba’s socialist principles: those who benefit from access to high-quality, publicly funded education and healthcare contribute back to the collective good. Every Cuban doctor, engineer or scientist working abroad has been trained at no personal cost, often through decades of heavily subsidized education and state investment.
The Cuban state’s decision to allocate a share of these professionals’ foreign earnings toward maintaining universal social programs is not “theft”; it is the redistribution of wealth to sustain equity and public welfare. This principle mirrors, in a more direct form, the taxation systems of capitalist economies where citizens pay substantial portions of their income to fund public services.
The only difference is that Cuba’s system explicitly recognizes the state’s role in ensuring that public investment in human capital benefits the entire population, not private profit.
The real context: US economic warfare and media manipulation
This CBC report must be understood within the broader context of the United States’ ongoing economic, political and media war against Cuba – a campaign that has persisted for more than six decades.
Every year, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly condemns the US blockade, which aims precisely to isolate and impoverish Cuba. The most recent vote again saw near-unanimous global opposition to this inhumane policy.
Unable to justify the embargo or the suffering it inflicts, anti-Cuba forces have shifted to demonizing Cuba’s internationalism – portraying its global medical, technical and educational cooperation as “human trafficking.” This propaganda not only insults the dignity and professionalism of the thousands of Cuban experts who voluntarily serve abroad, it seeks to undermine one of the most successful models of international solidarity in the Global South.
The logic of redistribution
The article claims that Cuban workers in Canada were “forced” to send a large share of their income home, suggesting hardship and deprivation. Yet even the figures provided by the workers – roughly $500–600 per month in personal spending – represent disposable income far greater than many working-class Canadians have left after paying for rent, utilities and basic necessities.
Meanwhile, the remaining funds they remitted to Cuba were not pocketed by individuals in government but used to sustain a society where no one goes without medical care, no child is left uneducated, and no elder is abandoned. The portrayal of this contribution as “abuse” reflects a deeply individualistic worldview, one in which wealth is privatized, and personal gain is prioritized over social obligation. In Cuba’s socialist framework, the training and deployment of professionals is not a personal enterprise but a national project – an investment in collective uplift.
The myth of coercion
Equally misleading is the allegation that Cuban professionals abroad are “forced” to attend ideological sessions or that their movements are tightly controlled. Like any nation that sends representatives overseas, Cuba maintains mechanisms for coordination, reporting and accountability. Workers abroad represent not just themselves but the institutions of the Cuban state, and their assignments – temporary and voluntary – reflect that responsibility.
The same Western commentators who claim outrage at this oversight ignore that multinational corporations routinely impose strict codes of conduct, reporting requirements and movement restrictions on employees representing them abroad. Yet when a socialist state does so, it is framed as repression.
Cuba’s social contract: rights with responsibilities
Cuba’s approach to international labour and cooperation cannot be understood through the lens of capitalist individualism. It is anchored in a social contract built on reciprocity. Cuban citizens enjoy universal access to healthcare, education through to the doctoral level, housing support and social security – all free or heavily subsidized. Those who work abroad benefit from these systems, and their contributions help sustain them for others.
In this light, the CBC article’s sensationalism about “wage confiscation” becomes absurd. The Cuban government’s expectation that its professionals contribute a share of their foreign earnings to fund these universal programs is no more exploitative than Canadian citizens paying up to 40 percent of their income in taxes – except that in Cuba, the results are tangible and egalitarian.
Defending sovereignty, dignity and truth
The CBC report is not a neutral act of journalism; it is a political intervention aligned with the longstanding US campaign to vilify Cuba’s socialist project. It distorts cooperative economic arrangements into narratives of “slavery” and “human trafficking,” ignoring the context of the brutal, US-imposed blockade that seeks to cripple Cuba’s economy and isolate its people.
Cuba’s policy of redistributing the earnings of those who work abroad embodies a vision of justice that transcends individualism. It sustains a nation where education, healthcare and social security are rights – not privileges. Those who decry this model might reflect on their own societies, where millions struggle under crushing debt, lack access to healthcare, and live paycheck to paycheck.
It is both curious and telling that in these latest attacks on Cuba no mention of Canada’s own foreign worker programs, which have repeatedly been denounced by human rights organizations, labour unions and even parliamentary committees for their systemic exploitation and denial of basic labour protections. Thousands of migrant agricultural and care workers in Canada endure grueling conditions, substandard housing, and the constant threat of deportation if they speak out – realities that constitute genuine coercion and economic abuse. This glaring omission underscores the selective moral outrage often directed at Cuba while ignoring the well documented injustices embedded in Canada’s own labour practices.
In truth, the real scandal is not that Cuban workers contribute to their nation’s collective wellbeing – it is that the corporate and media establishments of the West refuse to understand, or tolerate, a system that puts human development ahead of profit.
Julio Fonseca, Samantha Hislop and Isaac Saney are members of the Canadian Network on Cuba’s Executive Committee
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