The Unified Workers‘ Central (Central Única dos Trabalhadores, CUT) of Brazil, one of the world’s largest trade union federations, the most important in Latin America, and the country’s most representative, in 2015 implemented gender parity in its decision making bodies at national and state level. With this step it put itself at the forefront of the trade union movement where gender equality is concerned, being one of the few organisations to have adopted such a measure. Gender parity marks the culmination of a long construction process of more equal gender relations which started with the CUT’s foundation in 1983 and of which the minimum quota for either sex at its Executive Committee, adopted in 1993, is one of the most outstanding examples. Female workers have acquired associational and institutional power and have extended the social power of the CUT, which legitimates itself as the defender of women’s rights. Parity is understood in the sense of political parity including gender equality with respect to the possibilities of participation, overcoming obstacles like the gender division of labour, a male chauvinist culture and the imbalance in the distribution of positions.

Full-length Study (PDF): Building Trade Union Power with Gender Equality: The Case of the Unified Workers’ Central of Brazil by Didice Godinho Delgado
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/13794.pdf

CUT-Brazil, a trade union centre at the forefront of the feminist struggle by Nazaret Castro
https://www.equaltimes.org/cut-brazil-a-trade-union-centre-at#.Wrujb7j0zUl

La Central Única de Trabajadores de Brasil, un sindicato a la vanguardia de la lucha feminista by Nazaret Castro
https://www.fes.de/index.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=31108&token=a26e1c1def6357e5e5238c0e998b570b4384563b

La Centrale unique des travailleurs du Brésil, un syndicat à l’avantgarde de la lutte féministe by Nazaret Castro
https://www.fes.de/index.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=31109&token=cf7833c0283f620313d12d8f6622f75093708833

Construyendo poder sindical con paridad de género: el caso de la Central Única de Trabajadores de Brasil by Didice Godinho Delgado
https://www.fes.de/index.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=31102&token=6dd7df3724e11ff6ba4f754dff3ae29f157229c1

Didice Godinho Delgado

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