Hard Workers in Cuba Will Finally Get Their Due

Raul Castro has ordered employers to create new salary structures that include extra pay for increased productivity—a bold departure, by Cuban standards, from Socialist orthodoxy, the Miami Herald reports. Under the current system, workers get a flat fee based on their job descriptions with no hope for incentives. Low productivity is common, and Fidel's brother is anxious to kick-start the economy.

"I think of all the changes made so far, this one is the most important,'' said one dissident. "If you worked in an office in Cuba, you often got paid the same as the person who cleaned the office. Slow and lazy people got the same or even more, because the bosses got their jobs through political connections and didn't do any work.'' (More Cuba stories.)