Aracelio Iglesias Díaz

He was born in Consolación del Sur, province of Pinar del Río.

At age 13 he was orphaned of both parents and went to live in Regla, with his aunt Mónica, whom he helped support. At a young age he began working as a laborer on the docks of the port of La Habana.

Despite his limited education, he joined the Sociedad Juan Gualberto Gómez in Regla and in 1924 was elected secretary of that institution, a position he held for three consecutive years. Later, he joined the workers' organizations at the port of La Habana. His rebellious temperament immediately clashed with social reality and he decided to join the ranks of the Communist Party.

On August 12, 1933, the general strike would be the decisive factor in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado's dictatorship. The stoppage at the port lasted nineteen days, during which Aracelio actively participated in the struggles and was part of the Strike Committee. At the end of 1933, port workers agreed, in solidarity with the tobacco workers' strike, not to carry out tobacco shipments through the docks of La Habana.

In 1934, stevedores, laborers, and lightermen from the bay of La Habana and the coast of Regla declared a strike for their economic demands. The contractor Blas Pérez Rojas of the United Fruit Company attempted to break the movement.

Aracelio formed and organized picket lines to prevent the shipment of strikebreakers. Betrayed by employer agents, the police set up a cordon to arrest him, but he managed to evade his pursuers.

In a small room on Calle Aguacate, agents of the Military Intelligence Service detained him and found some Marxist books and Party propaganda. They also attributed to him the possession of weapons and explosives and he was sentenced by the Emergency Court to three years in prison on the Isle of Pines.

In 1937 he was released and immediately resumed his union activities among workers at the port of La Habana, taking on the struggle against the "contractors," who sought to pay starvation wages lower than those established by the Tariffs.

In 1938 he was elected financial secretary of the Union of Stevedores and Day Laborers of the bay of La Habana. He put an end to the situation of privileges that prevailed in the port and laid the groundwork for establishing Rotating Work Lists. These struggles resulted in the Union of Stevedores controlling work on all ships coming from the United States that were consigned to the firm Federico Casteleiro & Seamship Company.

In 1940 he undertook the struggle for payment of paid leave that the Ward Line owed its workers, which brought him police persecution and detention.

On the docks of the Auxiliar Marítima S.A., Hersey and Fifth Customs District of Regla, laborers had been receiving wages below the Tariff for more than three years. Aracelio gathered the workers and delegates from the docks and organized the struggle for strict compliance with the Tariffs and reimbursement of the amounts owed. Only the laborers from Auxiliar Marítima S.A. managed to collect more than $20,000.00 in back wages for the period mentioned.

During 1939-1940 he was elected general secretary of the Union, a position he held until the time of his assassination. Delegate of the Union to the constitutive congress of the Confederation of Workers of Cuba, he was elected a member of its Executive Committee. The workers' organizations at the port appointed him as workers' delegate to the Workers' Intelligence Commission of the port of La Habana. Also a member of the Executive Committee of the National Maritime Workers' Federation.

Although the Union had achieved important victories, an abnormal situation still prevailed at the port. The Union of Stevedores publicly denounced the outrages of the head of the Maritime Police. The then-chief of the Navy, Colonel González, summoned the secretary of the Stevedores to his office at the Castillo de la Punta. There Aracelio presented his evidence, which resulted in the head of the Maritime Police being removed from office.

In 1942, the struggles of Havana port workers, led by Aracelio Iglesias, achieved the establishment of Rotating Work Lists when the government of the day issued Decree 1286 of May 5 of that same year. Subsequently the Lists were validated when Congress of the Republic approved Law No. 11 of March 20, 1943, which consolidated this momentous achievement.

With the Rotating Lists established, he directed the Stevedores Control Commission and undertook the task of unifying all workers in the sector in the Union of Stevedores and Day Laborers of the bay of La Habana. This unification of stevedores strengthened their organization and their achievements. The base salaries that since 1925 had governed by agreement of the port's Intelligence Commission and were being violated, would henceforth have to be complied with.

The Union did not limit itself to enforcing the Tariffs, but also to raising wages. The first increase was 15% and had general effect for all maritime and port workers in the country and was issued by Decree 2982 of 1941.

Later, due to the conflict arising from the Supreme Court of Justice ruling on the use of "carriages" at the docks (platforms on which merchandise is placed and dragged by tractors), another 15% increase was obtained for workers at the port of La Habana, contained in Decree No. 2 of January 6, 1944.

A year later, a 20% increase in wages was achieved for all port workers on the Island, when Decree 431 of February 14, 1945 was issued. Two years later another 15% increase was achieved in cargo handling work with the exception of sugar and its derivatives and covering port workers nationwide, included in Resolution No. 1181 of July 1, 1947.

Iglesias maintained a situation of conflict with the shipping companies and the government, as they sought to undermine union unity to achieve general wage cuts and the elimination of the conquests achieved by unions. This unrest would provide the motive for the murder of the labor leader.

The anarchist gunman of Spanish origin and CIA agent, member of the Bureau of Investigation, Joaquín Aubí and the chief of regime supervisors in the Stevedores Control, Eliecer Baudín, alias "El Cojo," held different secret meetings to plan and execute the crime.

On October 10, Carlos Prío Socarras took office as president of the Republic, initiating a policy against the labor movement. In his first message to Congress he declared that "his government was prepared to put an end to personal attacks and eliminate gun violence." The new Minister of Labor, Buttari, also made statements, saying he "would respect the democratic will of the majority of workers in the unions."

On Friday, October 15, and convened by Aracelio Iglesias, an assembly of the Union of Stevedores was held at the location of tobacco rollers, which was attended by more than 600 workers and they agreed not to pay a single cent to the cetekarios and to carry out, on the following Monday, a demonstration before the Minister of Labor to demand the annulment of a resolution that appointed "Galate" (a recognized gunman) and his gang of "leaders" of the Union and to restore to their positions the union leadership elected by the stevedores in the regular elections held on March 14, 1948, as well as demand the immediate removal of supervisors from the Control Office and restore the situation of rights that had been altered at the port of La Habana.

On Sunday the 17th, Aracelio Iglesias, accompanied by his colleagues, went to the headquarters of the Union of Port Workers of the Cuba Shipping Company to meet with Pablo Sandoval, Mariátegui and other unitary leaders, in order to agree on the points of the statement they would deliver the next day to the Minister of Labor. Minutes later the union's lawyer and José Morera, organizing secretary of the CTC, arrived at the location where they were meeting. With the points that would be contained in the statement agreed upon, the lawyer left to draft the document that same morning.

After the meeting ended and as he was conversing casually with his colleagues, about to leave, the waiting gunmen burst violently into the premises with surprise, firing their weapons at Iglesias who, seriously wounded, was still able to get up and turn to face his attackers.

Aracelio had the following gunshot wounds: one in the middle third of the left clavicular region that penetrated a lung; another in the left flank with an exit wound on the opposite side that perforated his sigmoid; two more entrance and exit wounds in the left femoral region; another in the middle lower third of the right femoral region and another in the anterior region of the right knee. Due to his critical condition he was taken into surgery. The operation lasted more than four hours.

Press note published in the newspaper ALERTA
La Habana, (Monday, October 18, 1948)
Aracelio Iglesias shot to death
At 4:50 this morning, Aracelio Iglesias Díaz, 46 years old, the communist leader of the maritime sector, ceased to exist at the Municipal Hospital (Emergency), where he had been confined since noon on Sunday, attacked by gunfire from a group of individuals while presiding over an assembly of port workers that was being held at the union of the Havana Port Docks, located on Calle Oficios between Sol and Muralla, and at which discussion was taking place about a visit to the Labor Ministry to address matters concerning union funds. The announcement of Iglesias' death was delayed by the authorities in order to take all necessary security measures, since despite the late hour, a large crowd remained around the hospital awaiting further medical bulletins, as it was learned that for four hours the wounded man was in the operating room, where the doctors performed a delicate operation, although they harbored little hope that he would survive, as he presented injuries considered mortal, among them a perforation of the left lung and another bullet that damaged the femoral artery.