national

Union leaders to meet

Starting Wednesday and continuing through Saturday, Panama City will host leaders from the region’s two largest unions who are here to work out the details of a merger between them.

Leaders from the Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores (ORIT) and the Central Latinoamericana de Trabajadores (CLAT) will spend the week discussing the merger. ORIT represents 33 national labor confederations and 45 million workers, while CLAT represents 36 unions with 20 million members.

According to the organizers of the event, this merger is the result of many years of planning and negotiations. The unions decided to merge to help their members continue to assert their rights in a rapidly changing economic environment.

According to Arnaldo González, spokesman for the congress, the event will be opened on Wednesday by President Martín Torrijos at the Hotel El Panama. Also speaking that day will be Linda Chávez-Thompson, president of ORIT and CLAT Presidente Julio Roberto Gómez.

Also in attendance will be Guy Rider, president of the Confederación Sindical Internacional (CSI) union. That organization, which was formed in 2006 by the merger of the Confederación Mundial de Trabajadores (CMT) and the Confederación Internacional de Organizaciones Sindicales Libres (CIOSL), has more than 166 million members.