After three years in the planning stages, a Brazilian Postal Union delegation will be visiting locations in Canada and Quebec in early November 2005.

The four-person delegation from FENTECT will have wide-ranging discussions with CUPW activists and leaders around mutual issues facing postal workers in both countries, including privatization struggles, organizing strategies, neo-liberalism and postal services, collective bargaining, health and safety and approaches to human rights.

FENTECT is the largest postal union in South America, representing almost 100,000 Brazilian postal workers. As with CUPW, FENTECT has members across a vast geographic territory.

FENTECT has a history of militancy, most recently building a successful campaign against the privatization proposal by the government in power prior to the election of Lula's Workers' Party government. CUPW developed close links to FENTECT during this period. This visit will serve to consolidate our bilateral international ties.

The FENTECT delegation is made up of two sisters and two brothers and includes the National Secretary-General, the National Secretary of Education and the Secretary for International Relations.

The delegation will attend the UNI-Americas Postal Conference from November 2 to 4, 2005, in Aylmer, Quebec. The subsequent visit with CUPW activists will be as follows:

·November 6-8-Ottawa
·November 9-10-Montreal
·November 11-12-Kitchener
·November 13-15-Saskatoon

The FENTECT delegation will then return to Ottawa for a session with CUPW to bring together what has been learned and accomplished and plan our joint international work in the foreseeable future.

The visit of the FENTECT delegation is made possible as a result of Appendix "R" of the CUPW collective agreement which provides funds "to develop and maintain a relationship and exchange with postal workers from other countries and their unions".

The FENTECT/CUPW exchange establishes an important dimension in the growing international solidarity activities of our union as we face a globalized world.