| Unions Worldwide Organize |
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12th November 06, Billings Gazette Delegates from trade unions worldwide have launched a new global labor federation aimed at ensuring workers' rights are not forgotten in the rush toward economic globalization.
Organizers said the International Trade Union Confederation - formerly known as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions - would reinvent and modernize itself to better tackle fresh challenges to the rights of unionized workers and to strengthen its efforts to stamp out forced and child labor. Tradition continues "The strong tradition of solidarity will continue," said Guy Ryder, appointed recently to head the ITUC after the old union and the World Confederation of Labor were formally dissolved. "Trade union unity at the international level is now essential to ensuring more effective representation of the rights and interests of workers in the global economy," he said. Officials said the new umbrella group, touted as the world's largest dedicated to workers' rights, would represent more than 150 million members from 241 affiliated organizations in 156 countries. It replaces the Brussels, Belgium-based ICTFU, which was founded in 1949 to work on the enforcement of international labor standards. Austrian President Heinz Fischer, addressing the estimated 1,600 delegates in Vienna for a conference, called giving workers a greater voice "an important and indispensable component of a democratic society." Emilio Gabaglio, a former head of the European Trade Union Confederation, urged the world's labor unions to "go on the offensive" and combine forces to improve conditions. Bringing unions together The new confederation brings together a wide and diverse range of major labor unions, including Britain's Trades Union Congress, the United States' AFL-CIO, France's CGT union, Germany's DGB trade union federation and dozens of other labor groups from five continents. It staked out a tough position against globalization in its charter approved Wednesday, which decried violations of what members insist is a universal right to strike for better pay and working conditions and engage in collective bargaining. Lowell Peterson, a partner in the New York law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C., called the ITUC's formation a "major development" in the international labor movement's quest to influence global business. Published on 12th November 2006 by Billings Gazette
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