Place: on-line, for Latin America
Dates: 13 September to 03 December 2010
Organized with ACTRAV/ILO, specialy designed for Latinamerican workers and trade unions (in Spanish).
Latin America is one of the richest regions of the planet: home to the largest biodiversity in the world, enormous natural wealth, diverse ecosystems and cultures, surplus food production...economic development has been primarily based on the exploitation of natural resources without taking in account the social and economical consequences of an exportorientated extraction model.
What are the links between environmental degradation and social conflicts? How are the costs and benefits distributed? What are the points of contact between the environmental fight and the labour fight? How can sustainability and decent work be interlinked? What are the tools for trade union action?
These and other key questions are addressed in the on-line course “Sustainable Development and Decent Work”, coordinated by ACTRAV and Sustainlabour. The course aims to provide analysis and tools that allow workers to incorporate in a comprehensive manner the environmental dimension into their organisations’ actions. It also offers an opportunity for dialogue and exchange between trade unionists from all over the region.
The work was supported by 4 tutors, all Latin American trade unionists and environmentalist experts, under the coordination of Sustainlabour. As a final output the participants prepared awareness-raising material, trade union action plans and proposals for the inclusion of environmental clauses in collective bargaining agreements.
In figures…
39 Participants (44% female, 56% male)
Countries represented: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela
More information here (Spanish only)
In its second edition, the distance learning Course “Sustainable Development and Decent Work” was as much of a success as its first edition held the previous year. 39 participants from 12 countries in Latin America completed the three-month long training and successfully passed their final assignments this past December 2010.
Unemployment, precarious work, the financial crisis, the public deficit, environmental catastrophes, and the energy and food crisis are all challenges whose first negative effects will fall upon the world’s workers. It is urgent that the current model that shapes our societies be changed, a model that is unfair from the social point of view, unsustainable from an environmental point of view, and inefficient from an economic point of view. In the face of such challenges, the world of work cannot be absent, must assume a leading role when it comes to reaching solutions and proposing alternatives that are coherent with the search for liberty, justices and equality for all.
The decision was adopted in response to EU Commission consultation on unconventional fossil fuels in Europe
