Havana, Cuba ? From the cafeteria worker who forgoes the cash register to the cigar factory worker who slips a 25-count box into his backpack and the taxi driver who disconnects his odometer so it doesn’t show all the miles driven, Cuban employees long have been scamming government enterprises to make up for their absurdly low salaries.

But now the government is vowing to crack down on corruption, portraying the struggle as crucial for the survival of the communist system. While the campaign was declared a year ago by leader Fidel Castro, the issue has become even more critical as the ailing Castro convalesces and his brother Raul tries to manage a tricky succession.

In his first speech to a strictly domestic audience since Fidel turned over the presidency to Raul nearly three months ago, Raul recently urged officials of Cuba’s government-run labor confederation to step up the fight against corruption.

“One of the most difficult challenges in this ideological work is succeeding in making the worker feel like a collective owner of the society’s riches – and acting accordingly,” he said. “I’m not saying that this is the only cause of the acts of corruption and robbery and illegalities and lack of labor discipline. But … it is very difficult to confront these dangerous vices without the assistance of the workers.”

In an unusually probing two-page report last week, the official Juventud Rebelde newspaper dispatched reporters and inspectors to bars, restaurants and markets. They found beers half-filled, sandwiches light on meat and prices higher than state-regulated fees.

Nearly 11,700 of the 22,700 businesses probed through August cheated their customers either by overcharging or skimping on the product, the paper said – with the items taken home by the workers for their own use or sale on the black market.

Raul Castro alluded in his speech to the economic factors that drive workers to steal from state enterprises – the government runs virtually every business in Cuba – but did not say specifically how the government planned to combat it.

Most Cuban workers earn about $15 a month. Although housing, school and medicines are virtually free, subsidized food rations last just more than a week and prices for other goods often are out of reach.

A typical store may charge $3 for a bottle of rum, $20 for a pair of shoes, $2 for a pack of cigarettes.

“Everybody, everybody, everybody steals to get ahead,” said Jose Antonio, an unlicensed cab driver in the south-central city of Trinidad. “You work in construction, you steal a bag of cement. That’s $4! That’s not theft, that’s charging the company the salary they should be paying you.”