SEARCH
Brazil’s CUT, AFL-CIO Working Together to Address Global Jobs Crisis
 |
||||
|
||||
In a global economy, workers must come together across national borders to deal effectively with issues that affect more than one nation and to balance the power of multinational corporations.
Meeting today in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Brazilian CUT President Artur Henrique da Silva Santos discussed a joint strategy for addressing the current global jobs and financial crisis and how best to support financial reforms and policies that lead to the creation of decent work. CUT is the largest labor union federation in Brazil. Read the joint statement here.
CUT, the AFL-CIO and the international trade union movement support the crucial need for coordinated government action to maintain economic stimulus, avoid a double-dip recession and create badly needed jobs for the estimated 34 million workers whose jobs have been destroyed by the crisis.
During today’s meeting, the two federation presidents agreed on the urgent need to reform the financial system by pressuring governments and international financial institutions to support a financial speculation tax that places the burden of the crisis back on the financial institutions and creates the funds needed for eventual fiscal consolidation and sustainable development.
Both federations will continue to coordinate efforts with the global labor movement to help establish a G-20 working group on employment and social protection so the interests of workers are discussed as a key part of the global recovery.
Getting the G-20 to focus on working people is extremely important, da Silva Santos said. At the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh last year, the world leaders focused on work and the need for jobs. But now they seem to have shifted focus to deficits, debt and the unstable international financial system, he said.
The trade union movement must still pressure the G-20 that they need to be focused on work.
Joâo Antonio Felicio, CUT’s secretary for international affairs, said the jobs crisis affects women, young people and Afro-Brazilians hardest in his country, similar to its effects in the United States. Women, and especially Afro-Brazilian women, are stuck in low-wage jobs with little opportunity to advance. CUT has just created special offices to deal with issues relating to young workers and to combat racism in Brazil, he said.
Racism plays a big role in Brazil’s economy, da Silva Santos said, and the union is there to fight for all workers.
I can’t conceive of doing union work without doing this.
 |
Become a Fan on Facebook |  |
Follow Us on Twitter |  |
Subscribe to YouTube |  |
Subscribe to Blog RSS | ||||
3 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Brazil is rich we are poor!
The unemployment rate in Brazil was 7.50 percent in May of 2010.
The US rate was 9.7%
Creating a new tax a day will not solve our problems.
????
Brazil’s GDP in 2008 was $1.58 trillion. Ours was $14.59 trillion. The US standard living is still far higher than Brazil’s. A large part of the problem with the US economy is the enormous inequity in income and wealth that has come about due to tax policies that favor the rich and burden the middle class and poor. New and higher taxes on the upper classes is one (of a few) very effective ways to redistribute income back to the people that generate the wealth in this country, the workers. Rather than complaining about new taxes, how about researching exactly to whom these taxes would apply, because they won’t be you (that is, if you’re a middle class worker).
We got income tax cuts last year. If the federal government would fund local governments like it should, we wouldn’t be seeing local tax increases either. but as it is, the rich pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than most of the working and middle class do.
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
****************************
South and North of the Border
with
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic & Policy
Research, Pres. of Just Foreign Policy, & screen writer of the
new Oliver Stone documentary “South of the Border”
Producer Director Oliver Stone and screenwriters Mark Weisbrot and Tariq Ali celebrate the new reality of the independence won by most of the countries of Latin America from U.S. hegemony. They shed new light upon the exciting transformations in the region. We’ll also speak with Mark Weisbrot about developments north of the border and how the U.S. is imposing at home the kind of austerity blood letting that it once reserved for poor indebted countries, including the looming attack on the Social Security Trust Fund which will come when Pres. Obama’s
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform makes it’s recommendations after the elections.
********************
Latin American President Responding To International Economic
Crisis Advocates Abolition of the International Monetary Fund
with
Rafeal Correa, President of Ecuador
Continuing on our theme of exploring the growing independence of
Latin America from U.S. dominance, Building Bridges brings you high-lights of Ecuadoran President Correa’s presentation on the crisis of global capital, to a packed chamber at the UN at a Conference on economic development. Correa sharply criticized the policies of the International Monetary Fund and went so far as to advocate its abolition. He then proceeded with a sharp critique of capitalism’s relentless drive for profits,
*************************
To Download or listen to this 28 minute program
go to our website
http://www.buildingbridgesradio.org
Building Bridges is regularly broadcast live over WBAI,
99.5 FM in the N.Y.C Metropolitan area on Mondays from
7-8pm EST and is streamed, archived and pod cast at
http://www.wbai.org .
Building Bridges National Edition is regularly broadcast over:
KOWA, Olympia Washington .
CKUW, Manitoba, Canada
WHUS, Storrs, CT
WMNF HD FM Tampa, Florida
WPVM – MAIN-FM Asheville, NC
WERU Blue Hill and Bangor, Maine
WGOT – Gainesville, Florida.
WUOW – Oneonta, N.Y.
WWUH, – West Hartford, CT
WVJW- Benwood, WV
KRFP, Moscow, ID
KCSB, Santa Barbara, CA
WXOJ, Northampton, MA
KSOW,Cottage Grove, Oregon
WKNH ,Keene, NH
CKDU, Halifax, N.S., Canada
KRFC, Fort Collins, Colorado
WRPI, Troy, New York
WNRB, Wausau, WI
KRBS, Oroville, CA
WHLD, Buffalo, NY
Free Radio Olympia, Olympia,WA
KQRP Salida, California
East Hill Radio, Snoqualmie, WA
KSKQ, Ashland, Oregon
KWMD, Kasiloff-Anchorage, Alaska
WPRR, Grand Rapids, Michigan
WCRS, Columbus, Ohio
WSLU, St. Leo, Florida
as well as internet stations:
Radio Free Kansas
Radio Veronica, West Point, PA
The Journey Radio
WXXE
Seattle Radical Radio
Radio for Peace International
Radio Labourstart
AmericanFM.org
RadioDriftless.org
Grateful Dread Public Radio
=========================================
For archived Building Bridges National Programs go to
our website:
http://www.buildingbridgesradio.org