[1/4]U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during a meeting on the sidelines of the 78th U.N. General Assembly in New York City, U.S., September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Acquire Licensing Rights
NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, underscoring their shared commitment to shoring up democracy, launched an initiative on Wednesday to advance the rights of working people, a main focal point for both leaders.
Biden and Lula, speaking before a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the high-level United Nations General Assembly, highlighted the importance of decent jobs, good wages and ensuring that workers benefit from the digital and green energy transitions underway broadly in society.
“The two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere are standing up for human rights around the world and the hemisphere, and that includes workers’ rights,” Biden told Lula.
The U.S.-Brazil Partnership for Workers’ Rights will start as a bilateral initiative, but the two countries will encourage others to join in time, senior Biden administration officials said, without naming other possible participants.
Lula, warning that democracies were under threat around the world, said it was critical to shore up workers’ rights and said the new initiative would help “arouse hope” for working families while deepening ties between the two countries.
“It’s more than just another bilateral. It’s a faith relationship that we are building here and a new era for U.S.-Brazilian relations amongst equal partners,” he said, adding, “Poverty and inequality is not in the interest of anybody.”
Biden and Lula traded personal stories about the importance of decent jobs at the start of their second in-person meeting. The session coincided with a strike by 12,700 United Auto Workers members against Ford (F.N), General Motors (GM.N) and Chrysler parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) to press their demands for better pay and benefits.
Lula – who noted that he his education consisted solely of vocational training and that he had worked 27 years in a factory – said his labor minister met with striking workers on Tuesday.
“I think that this is a golden moment for us and the possibilities that we have ahead,” he said.
Biden, who has called for striking workers to get a “record contract” in line with automakers’ recent results, cited a recent U.S. Treasury Department report that showed the importance of unionization and how it improved economic outcomes.
When Lula visited Biden at the White House in February, both leaders focused heavily on the climate crisis, and pledged to accelerate measures to protect the Amazon, as well as the need to fight for and advance democratic values.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the initiative would address forced labor and child labor, the impact on workers of the clean energy and digital economic transitions, the gig economy, and workplace discrimination against women, LGBTQ+ people and racial and ethnic minorities.
The two leaders plan to raise the issues at multilateral forums such as the Group of 20 major economies, which Brazil will head next year, and global climate events COP 28 and COP 30, the Brazilian government said in a statement.
The initiative aims “to engage private-sector partners in innovative approaches to create decent jobs in key production chains, combat discrimination in the workplace and promote diversity,” the statement said.
The meeting is part of an effort by the United States to try to strengthen ties with Brazil, which has sought to maintain close ties to China, its main trading partner, even as tensions have increased sharply between Beijing and Washington.
A second official said Washington had been very clear about its concerns over human rights violations in China, its economic practices and military expansion, and would engage in conversations about those issues with Brazil.
But that official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, added that it was Brazil’s sovereign right to engage in relationships with China and other countries.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss a mounting humanitarian crisis in Haiti and Kenya’s offer to lead a multinational presence to support security improvements, one of the officials added.
Brazil could play an important role in engaging China and other U.N. Security Council members about the importance of participating in Haiti, the official added.
Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; editing by Grant McCool and Jonathan Oatis
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