Congreso Permanente de Unidad Sindical de los Trabajadores de America

(Permanent Congress of Trade Union Unity of the Workers of Latin America), an autonomous regional trade union organization that cooperates with the World Federation of Trade Unions. It was founded at a congress of Latin-American trade unionists held in Brasilia, Brazil, between Jan. 24 and Jan. 28, 1964, and was attended by representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Honduras, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, French Guiana, Chile, and Ecuador. The congress is guided in its actions by its Program of Struggle of the Permanent Congress for Joint Actions of the Workers of Latin America, which advocates a struggle to bring about nationalization of foreign monopolies, equitable prices on raw materials, free trade with all countries, democratic agrarian reforms, and extensive industrialization. The program also calls for planning of social and economic development in the interests of the working people, improvement of material conditions for workers and of labor legislation, and democratization of education and culture.

The highest organ of the congress is the general council, and the organization’s executive organ is the secretariat. The fifth session of the general council (1975) adopted the Panama Act, intended to further concerted action organized on anti-imperialist lines by the trade unions of Latin America. The press organ of the congress is the journal Revista Sindical Latinoamericana.