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Global Union Summit: Town Hall Meeting Affirms Freedom to Form Unions |
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The global union movement began the process of forming a common agenda today on critical issues such as global outreach and organizing.
Global leaders took part in a first-of-its-kind “electronic town hall meeting” earlier this day, with the vast majority—92 percent—saying global unions should target specific multinational enterprises to organize. This vote came in the context of support for ongoing, unified action by the world’s unions. As part of the electronic town hall, participants discussed problems in small groups and submitted solutions, voting on the submission by electonic keypad.
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), says organizing multinationals is critical:
“Multinationals operate on a truly global basis, and we in the labor movement must match this by ensuring that global trade union work connects with all levels of the union movement. Agreements between Global Union Federations and multinationals are one major way of ensuring union recognition and rights. We are also working on making sure that global trade, economic and financial policies are geared to support respect for workers’ rights rather than undermining them, which is so often the case at present.”
Organizing public-sector workers also drew significant support, with 40 percent preferring a broad campaign to support the right of public service workers to join unions and bargain collectively.
When it came to deciding the best measures for global unions to determine success in meeting these goals, 60.1 percent back providing an annual report tracing union density and bargaining coverage. And 92 percent say they are prepared to support a campaign in 2008, including an International Day of Action, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the International Declaration on Human Rights, which affirms the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively.
Speaking after the voting, Randall Howard, president of the International Transport Workers Federation, pointed out that:
We have to be an organizing, campaigning movement. That’s what we’re about. We have to connect the global strategy with local strategies and form alliances with organizations that have the same goals.
Phillip Jennings, general secretary of UNI-Telecom, a global trade union federation and one of the conference organizers, says the global union movement must get out the message that globalization has failed.
Business as usual has not worked. We want to move the world. We have the ideas. We have the spirit and we have learned we can win.
The AFL-CIO hosted the global organizing conference at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md. The meeting, “Going Global: Organising, Recognition and Union Rights,” was sponsored by the Council of Global Unions (CGU) and represents the first time such a large group of high-level trade union leaders from around the globe have gathered to develop ideas and strategies to combat corporations’ and governments’ efforts to suppress workers’ freedom to join unions, enhance cooperation among trade unions across borders and better represent workers in a global economy.
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