The Cuban Connection: American Trade Unions & DSA
Affiliated organizations include various DSA chapters such as NYC-DSA and Pittsburgh DSA, the DSA Cuba Solidarity Working Group (DSACuba), Cuban Americans for Cuba.
But first it’s important to note Karl Marx, first and foremost, considered the trade unions organising centres, centres for collecting the forces of the workers. “In addition to their original tasks, the trade unions must now learn how to act consciously as focal points for organising the working class in the greater interests of its complete emancipation. They must support every social and political movement directed towards this aim,” Karl Marx, Chapter 1 “Rôle of the Trade Unions in the General Class Struggle of the Proletariat.”
Several trade unions who traveled to Cuba includes Danny Valdes, union President for Amazon, and the union members of UE Local 150 who traveled to Cuba this past May (2025). Danny Valdes, known on X as cosmic_yawn, serves as Co-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Cuba Solidarity Working Group within the DSA International Committee. As a Cuban-American ecosocialist and organizer with NYC-DSA and related groups like GroundworkDSA and Comrades with Kids, Valdes focuses on promoting solidarity with Cuba, including efforts to end the U.S. blockade and embargo, while leading DSA’s international outreach on the island.
Affiliated organizations include various DSA chapters such as NYC-DSA and Pittsburgh DSA, the DSA Cuba Solidarity Working Group (DSACuba), Cuban Americans for Cuba; which Valdes co-leads, and broader networks like the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), where DSA is a member.
In 2025, primary travels to Cuba connected to DSA and Valdes’ affiliates occur via NNOC-organized solidarity brigades, which DSA supports as part of its anti-blockade campaigns. These trips emphasize political education, aid delivery, and forging ties with Cuban workers and revolutionaries, aligning with Valdes’ push for genuine solidarity. No evidence indicates Valdes personally traveled to Cuba in 2025, with his public references limited to a 2023 DSA delegation trip and promotions of upcoming efforts. Instead, journeys involve DSA members and affiliates joining NNOC coordinated brigades.
A significant DSA-specific delegation, the second official one led by Valdes, is scheduled for October 14-18, 2025, drawing 205 applications from members across 85 chapters. Selected participants, whose names remain undisclosed, aim to engage in political education and build connections with Cuban counterparts, though this remains a future event as of October 11, 2025, and is not counted in current travel records.
Chris Smalls, founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union, made a documented trip to Cuba from late April to early May 2023 (April 24 to May 3). As part of a solidarity delegation organized by the International Peoples’ Assembly and hosted by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center in Havana, Smalls joined over 150 U.S. organizers to participate in the May Day march, meet Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and engage in anti-imperialist and union discussions. He emphasized the U.S. blockade’s harms and faced Customs scrutiny upon return. No additional Cuba trips by Smalls were recorded in 2024 or 2025, though he continues to advocate for Cuban solidarity.
From April 25th to May 10th, five worker members of UE Local 150, accompanied by two staff members, embarked on a journey to Cuba as part of the International Mayday Brigade, organized by the National Network on Cuba.
The 2025 trip was named in honor of Baba Priier, the founding president of UE Local 150 and a housekeeper at UNCC, as well as Brother Ray, a Durham city worker and the local’s founding treasurer, who had previously participated in a labor exchange in Cuba during the late 1990s.
This year’s delegation included former UE Local 150 president Sakia Royale, Chris Benjamin, a sanitation worker from Durham, Tim Hunt, an employee at the Rocky Mount Cummins diesel engine plant, Michelle Dunlap Thompson, a former CATS special transit bus driver and the local’s former recording secretary, and Bring Moss, a young state employee based in Raleigh. The group was joined by staff members Troy Wright, based in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and UE staff coordinator Dante Strabino. Additionally, Brenda Hines from Black Workers for Justice participated in the brigade, which comprised a total of over 100 activists from across the United States.
For a historical perspective on the long standing history of trade union coordination with Cuba, in June 2017, Victor Manuel Lemagne Sánchez , Cuban Hotel & Tourism Union General Secretary spoke on the Cuban labor movement, the tourism union and industry spoke at numerous local union conferences. Victor Manuel Lemagne Sánchez visited 11 cities across the United States between late June and mid-July. His tour included visits to cities such as Berkeley, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose/South Bay, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.
During these visits, he engaged with various labor organizations. The unions and labor councils he interacted with included UNITE HERE, Communications Workers of America Local 9119, San Francisco Labor Council, San Jose/South Bay Central Labor Council, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (retired Local 10 members), New York State Nurses Association, 1199 SEIU, Chicago and Midwest Joint Board of Workers United, and Service Employees Union Local 1.
Victor Manuel Lemagne Sánchez has been Secretary-General of Cuba’s Health and Tourism union since 2011. As the leader of that nation-wide union he is also a member of the CTC Secretariat (executive committee). Lemagne is also a delegate to Cuba’s National Assembly (Parliament). He is Vice President of the International hotel and tourism union for the Americas and Caribbean affiliated with the World Federation of Trade Unions.
Clarence Thomas ILWU Local 10 Secretary Treasurer retired introduced him as well as Alicia Jrapko of the National Network on Cuba. The meeting was held on 6/29/17 at the UPTE CWA union hall in Berkeley, California. In April and July 2025, the CWA and the IUE-CWA division demonstrated support for members from Cuba and other countries facing potential deportation from the U.S.. In Kentucky, IUE-CWA Local 83761 provided legal assistance and other support for nearly 200 members targeted for deportation after the cancellation of the CHNV humanitarian program.
“On July 10, in Washington, D.C.,Lemagne Sánchez met with the executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, Tefere Gebre, and Cathy Feingold from the International Department of the AFL-CIO. Afterwards, Lemagne Sánchez lunched with representatives of AFL-CIO constituent organizations, including its LGBTQ unit, PRIDE at Work; the A. Philip Randolph Institute; the Coalition of Labor Union Women; and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.
Between union and community events in Baltimore,Lemagne Sánchez was welcomed on July 11 at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C., where he met with the Cuban ambassador to the U.S., José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez,” article from Workers World.
By permitting these revolutionaries to travel abroad for training in anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist strategies, our democratic system is subverted as they return to organize militant movements, import radical ideologies, and challenge American sovereignty through grassroots activism, cultural projects, calls for systemic overthrow, with a broader reach through trade union organizing. In light of these threats, we urge the Trump administration to launch a thorough investigation into all groups including trade unions, their affiliates, and scrutinize the subversive impacts of their domestic and international activities which may undermine our system of governance in America.