TUCA presents the Development Platform for the Americas in Haiti

On Monday 23 November 2015, in Port-au-Prince (Haiti), the Haitian trade union centres met to present the Development Platform for the Americas (PLADA) to the Haitian government and to discuss its implementation at national level.

The event was attended by the general secretary of the TUCA, Víctor Báez, the Haitian Minister of Labour and Social Security, Ariel Henry, and the director of the ILO National Office in Haiti, Julien Magnat. The Haitian trade union movement was represented by the three national trade union centres affiliated to the ITUC and the TUCA, the Confédération des Travailleurs des Secteurs Public et Privé (CTSP), Confédération des Travailleurs Haïtiens (CTH) and Coordination Syndicale Haïtienne (CSH), as well as the sister organisation Centrale nationale des ouvriers haïtiens (CNOHA).

The Labour Minister expressed the government’s interest in the PLADA proposal, as an instrument for strengthening social dialogue and trade union unity. Julien Magnat stressed the importance of the PLADA in ensuring an ever-growing role for the Haitian trade union movement within the framework of national and international tripartism, and offered the ILO’s support for this process.

Víctor Báez underlined that, "Following the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, the government’s priority has been the material reconstruction of the country; our concern, however, is with the construction of the country’s social edifice, the bricks of which are the rights of its people."

During the discussions, the national trade union centres proposed a number of concrete measures for the implementation of the PLADA in Haiti. These included the establishment of a regional development bank, social governance centred on social protection and decent work, progressive fiscal reform and permanent social dialogue structures in which the most representative trade union centres take part.

The Haitian Inter-Union Women’s Committee, for its part, examined the four pillars of the PLADA from a gender perspective, highlighting that there will not be a change of model until the political participation and economic autonomy of women is effectively achieved and their social and environmental contribution is recognised.

Víctor Báez added: "The change of model proposed by the PLADA cannot be achieved from one day to the next, but we have to start somewhere. It can only be achieved if the national trade union centres work together. We need to overcome our "political poverty", fuelled by the divisions between organisations and the lack of propositive capacity, otherwise we will not overcome the economic and social poverty."

Source: TUCA