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May 1, 2008 7:29 pm US/Eastern
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Cubans March En Masse On May Day
HAVANA (CBS4) ―
Hundreds of thousands of workers joined the traditional May Day march in Cuba's capital, Havana on Thursday.
May Day is celebrated worldwide, but few gatherings rival the event on the communist island.
This year's participants gathered in Havana's broad Revolution Plaza, waving Cuban flags and hoisting banners exalting the Castro brothers.
Raul Castro oversaw the parade, the first major event on the island since he permanently assumed the presidency.
Wearing an olive green uniform, he smiled and waved at the crowds, but he did not address them.
Speaking at the rally, the head of communist Cuba's powerful labour union called for more efficiency and harder work in the face of rising world fuel and food prices as hundreds of thousands of workers joined the traditional May Day march on Thursday.
The secretary-general of the Cuban Workers' Confederation, Salvador Valdes Mesa, also exhorted workers to adhere to the principles of Fidel Castro, the ailing 81-year-old former president.
"We Cubans have great challenges before us," Valdes said, adding that state employees need to rout out "inefficiencies and weaknesses" in the workplace.
Some Cubans had hoped the government would use May Day to announce more reforms.
Since succeeding his brother, the 76-year-old Raul has lifted restrictions for ordinary Cubans on mobile phones, computers and DVD players.
They can now also rent cars and stay in luxury hotels on the island, if they can afford it.
The new administration recently began letting small farmers find better uses for fallow government land and was making it easier for state workers to own homes they previously rented through their jobs.
Increases in small government pensions and court employee salaries were announced earlier this week.
Many hope the government will soon ease foreign travel restrictions and authorize salary increases for more state employees - or even strengthen the national currency, now worth 24-to-one against the US dollar.
The average state salary is just 19.50 US dollars per month, though health care and education are free, basic food is subsided and most people do not have to pay for housing.
While Fidel's image was more common at Thursday's rally, for the first time there were some posters with photographs of Raul, who was named president on February 24.
It was the second consecutive year and only the fourth time in nearly five decades that Fidel Castro missed May Day festivities since the 1959 revolution.
The 81-year-old has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006.
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