The initiative strengthens the already strong labor ties between the two countries and offers to help workers with five important problems right away: protecting workers' rights, such as by stopping exploitation, forced labor, and child labor; encouraging safe and decent work by making public and private investments more accountable promoting a clean energy shift that puts workers first; making sure that changes in technology and the internet help workers; fighting discrimination at work, especially against women, LGBTQ+ people, and racial and ethnic minorities; In order to reach these goals around the world, Brazil and the US will work together with other countries, the International Labor Organization, and union and employer partners. They will do this through joint projects and participation in the G20, COP 28, COP 30, and other events. I'm happy that the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) of the U.S.
Department of Labor will be at the center of this effort to make progress for working people around the world, along with other U.S. government agencies
We already work together, and this new partnership will build on that. For example, we just signed a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on worker cooperation. This MOU says that the US and Brazil will talk to each other once a year, share information about jobs and labor problems, and work together to promote basic rights and principles at work in other countries. In November, I'm excited to go to Brazil to lead the first U.S.-Brazil Labor Dialogue under this MOU. We are now in M-POWER, which stands for the Multilateral Partnership for Organizing, Worker Empowerment, and Rights. Brazil is now a partner, along with Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, South Africa, and Spain. The goal of this groundbreaking relationship is to help working families do well in the global economy and to make trade unions and organized workers more important to democracy. The M-POWER project brings together the work of governments, trade unions, and ordinary people to give workers more power and protect their rights around the world. The U.S. government promised $130 million, which is a huge amount of money, to help M-POWER reach its goals. Through this project, we're also creating chances for people to work together and get involved in a number of different areas. For example, we're drawing attention to the positive effects that working together can have on ending gender-based violence at work and speaking out against violence and harassment against trade union leaders and members around the world. We are excited for Brazil to become an active partner in solving these problems.
Brazil and I have also worked together on technical aid projects to help workers speak out and stop exploitation
We started a project in March to help workers' groups and civil society groups do their jobs better by finding and reporting labor violations and speaking up for workers in Brazil and Paraguay who work on cow farms. I had the pleasure of going to Brazil in May to start the Worker Empowerment in South America project. This project aims to improve respect for workers' rights in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru by building stronger, democratic, and independent worker organizations. This past week, we also announced a big new global project called RISE to Promote Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining Globally. This project is a partnership with the International Labor Organization to make it easier for workers to form unions and bargain collectively around the world. This project will help fund actions in and with Brazil that give workers more power. We really value the important part the ILO has played in this cooperation, as well as its work with Brazil on South-South cooperation. We are excited to build on this work. For workers in both countries, this means that our governments are working together on issues that matter at work in a way that has never been seen before. These include supporting wages that can support a family, strong democratic trade unions, safe and healthy workplaces, and fighting exploitation and discrimination at work. We're including everyone who has a stake, like companies and union partners. I went to an event last week put on by the International Labor Organization (ILO) that brought together business, labor, and government leaders from the US and Brazil to talk about how to support decent work in both countries and around the world, working with the ILO. We talked to workers and employers directly about their main worries, and we will use what they said in future work together.
The power of governments is greater when they work together
Including with businesses and union partners. We are dedicated to making sure that our partnerships between the U.S. and Brazil have real and significant effects on workers in both countries and all over the world. Without a doubt, Brazil is having problems, some of which I talked about in my last blog post. Recent news stories have also caused market fluctuations. We can't say for sure what will happen with Brazil's politics, but we do know that things could be rough in Brazil for a while because markets don't like unpredictability. That doesn't mean, though, that there aren't long-term investment chances out there. Our investment style is bottom-up, so we look at each company and its possibilities. We can't ignore the country's overall economy, though. My team and I recently visited a lot of companies in Brazil. Here are some of the things I noticed about them, the problems they are having, and the ways they are trying to solve them. It's our job to pick the companies that we think will be able to stay in business and do well when things get better in Brazil, which we think will happen eventually.
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