In the speech that opened the International Workers Day parade in Havana city, Valdes Mesa said that the millions of Cubans celebrating the date are happy for the recent Sixth Communist Party Congress, held in April, which set the guidelines to renovate the Cuban economy model and to improve life in the country.
  He added that the heroes that made possible that today Cuba celebrates 50 years of socialism are walking along the young generations that celebrate the workers´ day.
  The union leader said that workers, along the unions, are the ones in charge of the transformations and improvement of the economic model and society. To achieve both, he said, they need to work, save and be efficient and united.
  He said that unity is necessary more than ever, that many new self-employed workers have been added to the Cuban labor force.
  Valdes Mesa thanked friends from all over the world that came to this parade to express their solidarity with Cuba, and also those abroad that admire Cuba and its Revolution.
  Cuba knows of this support, he said, because it had been under the fifty year long economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States upon Cuba.
  Valdes Mesa concluded by demanding the US government to immediately free the five Cuban antiterrorists unjustly incarcerated in US prisons.