A woman works at a UBPC (Unidad Basica de Produccion Cooperativa - Basic Unit of Cooperative Production), a type of agricultural cooperative that was created in 1993, after the economic collapse, transforming many state farms into UBPCs. The law also linked the workers to the land, establishing material incentives for increased production by tying workers' earnings to the overall production of the UBPC, along with increased managerial autonomy and participation in the management of the workplace. The Cuban government hoped that these structural changes in the agricultural sector, coupled with other economic reforms, would alleviate the hardships experienced during the economic collapse (known as the Special Period) that followed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the COMECON..