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Assign one of the following roles to each member of your group. Each team member should research his/her role in preparation for the group activity.

Role

Team Member Name

Rosa Ybarra, born in Cuba, wealthy daughter of cigar factory owner.



Guillermo Gonzalez, Cuban-American factory worker of African descent. Active in Cuban nationalist movement and trade union organizing.



Hector Villareal, Cuban-American Lector at cigar factory.

Aleara Taylor

Watson Wilson, Irish-American investor in cigar factory.



Gloria Cabrera, Cuban-American factory worker with several children, worried about job security.



The Scenario

The Ybarra Cigar Factory has been the backbone of economic and cultural life in Ybarra, Florida. Recently, there has been a great deal of turmoil at the factory. Factory management is concerned about revolutionary and unionizing activity among the workers, and wants to eliminate the position of “lector,” a worker who reads to others while they roll cigars. Management also wants workers to continue working long hours, six days a week, at the current pay rate, while workers are demanding a shift to five-day work weeks and overtime pay for days that exceed eight hours. All stakeholders are scheduled to hold a meeting to discuss the conflict.

About the lector: The lector held a role unique to cigar factories. This tradition was rooted in the factories of Cuba, and traveled to the United States as part of the wave of Cuban immigrants. Traditionally, the lector was a well-dressed man in a Panama hat who sat on a raised platform and read to workers as they rolled cigars. Workers would request works by favorite authors, such as Cervantes and Victor Hugo, as well as news and revolutionary writing, such as works by Karl Marx. The lector was generally an educated man who spoke several languages.




Questions to Consider

While you should draw on research about the historical period to help make sure that your answers to these questions are realistic, you will need to use your imagination to take on the perspective of your assigned character and fill in the gaps. Consider each of the following questions as you explore your assigned role. Use the space below each question to take notes.



1. What is this person’s “stake” in the factory dispute?



What evidence (from research) do you have to support your perspective?



2. What does this person have to lose? What does s/he have to gain?



What evidence (from research) do you have to support your perspective?




3. What is likely to be most important to this person? Why?



What evidence (from research) do you have to support your perspective?



4. What might this person be willing to compromise?



What evidence (from research) do you have to support your perspective?

Respuesta :

anthougo

The chosen character for this discussion is Rosa Ybarra, born in Cuba, the wealthy daughter of a cigar factory owner because as an owner, she will always feel threatened by the workers employing lectors who did not read from acceptable materials.

1. The stake for Rosa Ybarra in the factory dispute is reduced profits and mounting costs during factory strikes.

Evidence shows that most cigar factory strikes occurred when the factory owners forced out lectors, perceived to spread class struggle and economic justice among the workers. A case in point is the Tampa Cigar Workers’ Strike of 1931, which escalated to accusations that workers engaged in communist plots against the Federal Government.

2. The owner, Rosa Ybarra, loses profits, sales revenue, and customers with skyrocketing fixed costs and loss of cigarette inputs.

The evidence shows that when workers embark on strike actions, the owners incur more costs than necessary and cannot recover lost revenues during the period while some inventories are lost.

3. The most important things for the cigar factory owners to achieve are:

  • Continued production and sales
  • Lack of friction with workers
  • Workers embarking on class struggles and seeking economic justice.

Historical evidence shows that many of the materials that the Lectors read from had socialist or leftist coloration, to the chagrin of the factory owners.

4. The owner of a cigar factory might be willing to compromise overtime payments if the workers could do away with Lectors.  They always think that lectors can bend the workers' social and economic orientation.

The evidence that supports this perspective is that factory owners were not in the habit of allowing Lectors to read materials that were not mainly for entertainment's sake.

Who was a factory Lector?

A factory lector was an intellectual giant selected by workers to help keep their minds engaged and active during monotonous labor.  In Cuba, the lector usually sat on an elevated platform and read from sources selected by the workers.

According to history, lectors remained a valued source of:

Entertainment

Education

Solidarity among workers in most Cuban cigar factories.

Thus, Rosa Ybarra as the wealthy daughter of a cigar factory owner will always feel threatened by the workers employing lectors who did not read from acceptable materials.

Learn more about the role of Lectors in Cuban cigar factories at https://brainly.com/question/14468715