Cubans told to work harder at May Day celebration

By Jeff Franks

HAVANA (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Cubans filed through Havana's Revolution Square on Friday in a May Day parade where they were exhorted to work harder to help their country's battered economy.

President Raul Castro, wearing a straw hat and white guayabera shirt, waved from a podium overlooking the vast plaza as the flag-waving masses moved past.

He did not speak, leaving that task to Cuban labour leader and high-ranking Communist Party official Salvador Valdes Mesa.

Fidel Castro, who led Cuba for 49 years before ceding power last year to his younger brother, was not present, missing his third straight May 1 parade.

Now 82, he has not been seen in public since falling ill in July 2006, although he regularly writes influential columns published in Cuba's state-run media.

Valdes spoke about Cuba's economic woes, saying three hurricanes last year and an ongoing global financial crisis had inflicted much damage.

Workers, he said, needed to work to raise "production and productivity, for the reduction of costs and expenditures, to grow exports and (reduce) imports."

Achieving these goals, Valdes said, would require everyone to "work with more discipline, with more quality."