TUAC called for stronger trade union participation in governance systems across Latin America and the Caribbean at the Third OECD Ministerial Summit on Governance in Asunción, Paraguay on 11 November. Trade unionists including CUT Paraguay General Secretary, Mirtha Arias Noguer, challenged governments to address declining public trust through improved infrastructure governance and respect for labour rights.
Trade unions highlighted the alarming erosion of workers’ rights across the Americas, citing evidence that 88% of countries in the region violate the right to strike, 80% violate the right to collective bargaining and 68% violate the right to establish and join a trade union.
Public distrust is a considerable risk to democracy, not only in the region but worldwide. Infrastructure governance offers an opportunity to build trust by respecting labour rights and inviting democratic participation of workers and their unions in government policy.
As one of the world’s most unequal regions and among the most vulnerable to climate change, Latin America and the Caribbean require strong social and environmental safeguards in infrastructure projects, including those related to the development of clean energy, to ensure a just transition.
Trade unions demand that governments integrate labour and responsible business conduct criteria from the outset of infrastructure projects, not as an afterthought, and that public procurement contracts be made conditional upon compliance with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and international labour standards. TUAC also calls for proper transparency and oversight of public contracts to enable accountability and proper engagement with social partners.
Speaking in the session on integrity, TUAC stressed the connection between formalising work and fighting corruption. Informality represents 47.6% of the labour market in Latin America and the Caribbean, with women and young people disproportionately impacted. Trade unions argued that by weakening institutions, corruption creates perverse incentives to keep workers in informality, which in turn erodes countries’ tax bases. In contrast, social dialogue helps develop cultures of transparency and accountability – something which has been well-demonstrated by union-led anti-corruption campaigns across Argentina, Panama and Colombia.
TUAC will continue to press for reforms across Latin America and the Caribbean that place workers’ rights and social dialogue at the centre of economic policy.
