Radio Mundo Real

In 2012, a group of 20 countries led by the US and Australia started highly secretive negotiations aimed at promoting the creation of a trade liberalization instrument at international level: the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). Since becoming aware of the negotiations, networks of organizations and trade unions such as Public Services International (global trade union federation), rejected the agreement, denouncing that applying market rules to public services means the loss of sovereignty in the countries of the South, in the sense that their states are losing sectors that are strategic for their development (communications, financial services, education, health, etc) for the benefit of transnational corporations, weakening the access of the population to rights such as education, health, social security, among others.

The Uruguayan government requested in 2014 to enter the TISA negotiations, of which Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and Paraguay were already part. Fernando Gambera, International Affairs Secretary for PIT-CNT (Uruguayan central union) said that TISA is an agreement rejected by the union and that the issue will be "on the streets, and at the next Congress of June to respond to those who want to play down its importance and are saying that workers are "seeing ghosts", when in fact these are real concerns".