Hello everyone!
Tudo bem?
Attached is a photo of the sisters from the Women’s Secretariat of the CUT (Brazilian labour central) with a copy of the NWTF report and our poster.
Last Friday, the global labour university students met with the CUT and the bank workers’ union of Sao Paulo (who have a pretty snazzy office!).
There are three major issues that Brazilian unions are fighting for at the moment:
1. Pressuring the congress to ratify ILO convention 151, which gives public sector workers (federal, state and municipal) the right to collectively bargain.
2. Pressuring congress to ratify ILO convention 158, which protects workers from arbitrary dismissal. Presently, employers can fire workers at will. The turnover rate of the labour force is around 43% – extremely high!
3. Campaign to reduce the workweek from 44 hours to 40 hours, without a reduction in salary. They estimate that such a reduction would create 2.8 million new jobs.
Hope you are all well. I am hoping to meet with representatives of the PSI Brasil in the next month to learn more about our sister unions here.
My son has been here with me for 2 weeks now, and is at a soccer school 4 times a week. He is doing really well, and is thrilled to have the chance to play soccer with Brasilian kids.
Abracos,
Cheryl
dr/cope 491