TUCA and ECLAC hold international workshop on “Sustainable Development with Social Inclusion”

The international workshop on “Sustainable Development with Social Inclusion” was held in Asuncion, Paraguay, from 30 June to 3 July 2015. It was attended by 26 leaders from the Central Nacional de Trabajadores de Paraguay (CNT) and the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores Auténtica de Paraguay (CUT-A), both affiliated to the TUCA.

The course was part of the training programme agreed on by the TUCA and ECLAC through the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES). The aim of the training was for the trade union leaders to make a comparative analysis of the TUCA and ECLAC proposals on sustainable development.

The ECLAC proposal, “The Equality Trilogy”, states that equality is the horizon, structural change with more and better employment is the path, and policy is the instrument”.

As regards the TUCA proposal, contained in the Development Platform for the Americas (PLADA), the fundamental pillars are decent work, fair distribution of wealth, participatory democracy, regional integration and equality in all its forms.

The opening ceremony was led by Víctor Ferreira, general secretary of CUT-A and Antolín López, international relations secretary of the CNT, who, on behalf of their respective organisations, recognised the TUCA and ECLAC’s efforts to train teams of trade union leaders in alternative development proposals capable of tackling the neoliberal development model being expeditiously promoted by the current Paraguayan government.

René Hernández, of the ILPES/ECLAC said that ECLAC is very interested in concluding agreements and alliances with the trade union movement of the Americas, as one of the fundamental components of its development proposal is the establishment of “compacts for equality”. These compacts would not be viable without a strong trade union movement capable of engaging in dialogue with governments and other social and political components of Latin American society, added Hernández.

Laerte Teixeira da Costa, TUCA social policy secretary, underlined the importance of the TUCA and ECLAC training programme and called on the participants to learn about and deepen their knowledge of the PLADA, which should serve as the framework for drafting public policy proposals to counter the current proposals of the Paraguayan government.

Teixeira de Costa concluded by underlining that there are many overlaps between the TUCA and ECLAC proposals, and that the task should be to “work together to build genuine social alliances that converge into a counter-hegemonic agenda capable of embracing and articulating all voices”.