We, workers reaffirm the document signed at the 33^rd. Meeting of the Technical Committee in Chile and uphold the need to consider vocational training as an overall kind or preparation, supplementary to technical education but never intended to replace it, sustaining and disseminating the values of equity, solidarity and social justice. We also recognise CINTERFOR as an organisation that promotes and strengthen vocational training initiatives in the region, and proclaim the need to adopt tripartite principles in training. Effective participation of workers in the management of CINTERFOR guarantees the acknowledgement and representation of labour interests.

We are concerned about the existence of scattered initiatives that do not allow for consistent co-ordination, and may lead to conceptions and programmes that do not take into account workers’ aspirations, do not make their participation effective nor consider the serious problem of unemployment.

The well-known "employability" logic turns vocational training into a variable that increases productivity and disguises the shrinkage of labour posts and their loss of quality, making workers responsible for obtaining work posts in the labour market.

Institutional mechanisms must exist to foster and ensure opportunities for workers’ effective participation and negotiation spaces, the creation of channels for social inclusion, avoiding the perpetuation of the discriminations that can be seen every day in increasingly segmented and precarious labour markets.

We therefore propose:

The effective participation of workers’ representatives in the definition of the objectives of CINTERFOR, and its management through participation in the Programme, Budget and Administrative Committee.

The various CINTERFOR initiatives are a positive contribution to the promotion and diagnostic study of vocational training, but we feel that it is necessary to create a programme of activities aimed at training Union Federations, their respective unions and workers’ organisations for their permanent participation in the design and management of vocational training policies and their integration at the level of Latin America and the Caribbean.

That CINTERFOR should promote and Encounter of Latin American and Caribbean Workers envisaging three main points:

The relationship between education and vocational training.

The participation of workers in the management of the resources, programmes and institutions of vocational training.

The negotiation of vocational training

We suggest that this meeting be held in the last quarter of 1999, with the technical support of CINTERFOR during the months preceding it, through a network for the exchange of information on the above subjects. The main objective of the Encounter will be to consolidate a diagnosis and choose action guidelines for worker organisations, as well as proposing future lines of action.