ITUC OnLine
Second ITUC World Congress opens in Vancouver, Canada
Now the people – from the crisis to global justice
Vancouver, 21 June 2010: The second ITUC World Congress was officially opened today in Vancouver, Canada. More than 1400 delegates from around world will debate the future of the trade union movement under the theme Now the People, from the crisis to global justice. With a total of 311 affiliated organizations, representing a total membership of 175 million workers from 155 countries and territories, the ITUC is, after four years of existence, incontestably the global voice of labour in this period of economic and financial crisis. The ITUC Congress will focus its debate on different themes, such as the global financial and economic crisis, and will consider resolutions on peace, youth, human and trade union rights and equality. Delegates at Congress will deal with issues related to labour’s demands for restructuring and reform of the global economy with an emphasis on themes such as workers’ rights, migrant workers, climate change and HIV-AIDS.
Speakers and panellists expected at the Congress include Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund; Pascal
Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization; Helen Clark,
Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme; Argentina’s
President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; and Kari Tapiola, Executive
Director of the International Labour Organization.
The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), which represents 3.2 million members, is hosting the ITUC Congress. CLC President Ken Georgetti reminded delegates
of the province of British Columbia’s “proud and militant history of trade unionism”. He proposed that those traditions of labour solidarity should serve to stop the CEOs and banks who “put greed before need” and caused the global recession, and who are now pressuring governments to undertake “mindless deficit reduction” instead of protecting jobs and public services.
In a live broadcast address from New York, George Papandreou, Prime
Minister of Greece, spoke of his country’s current economic problems and
pointed out that Greece does not have a lavish welfare system, as some
conservative commentators have claimed, but that the crisis originated in
economic mismanagement . “During the current crisis, trade unions are needed
more than ever to fight for workers’ rights, sustainable development and a
just world order,” said Papandreou. He also endorsed the creation of a
financial transaction tax (FTT) to provide needed revenue for job creation,
the green economy and development assistance, and to help “control
destructive speculation”.
ITUC President Sharan Burrow noted that trade unions had warned global
decisions-makers of and the dangers of global imbalances and the lack of
regulation to rein in corporate greed well before the global financial
system came to the brink of collapse in 2008. Political leaders initially
recognized the need to rebalance the global economy and put employment at
the heart of economic recovery, but in the past two months, “one European
government after another is being forced into a premature and suicidal rush
to implement austerity measures to pacify reckless financial markets. The
possibility of a double-dip recession has now become a probability.”
“Nobody argues that fiscal consolidation is not important over time,” said
Burrow, “but it is the timing that is critical and it requires a growth
strategy that can soak up debt, without further attacks on the livelihoods
and living standards of working people, and the threat of further economic
turmoil.” She rejected the approach of those who would return to the failed
“Washington Consensus” policies of the 1980s and 1990s and instead advocated the alternate policy options put forward by the global trade union movement, consisting of income-driven growth, improved social protection, green jobs, investment in education and research, and protection of workers’ rights.
ILO Director General Juan Somavia, in a message delivered in his absence,
stated that “trade unions are an indispensable part of the economy and
democracy” and that “the world needs the strong unions that you are building
more than ever”, since they remind decision-makers of “the need to focus on
the social deficit” rather than solely on fiscal deficits.
The ITUC Congress is scheduled to elect la new leadership for the next four
years on the last day of deliberations, Friday.
For more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224
0204 or +32 476 621 018