On the occasion of the start of the 110th ILC, the WFTU addresses a cordial greeting to all the worker’s representatives. Since its founding in 1945, the WFTU gives particular attention to its intervention within the ILO, treating the procedures of this organization as a field of struggle, since its decisions, in one way or another, affect the living and working conditions of workers.
The interventions of the WFTU promote over time the positions of the class-oriented trade union movement and at the same time expose the anti-labor policies and the phenomena of submission of this organization in interests contrary to the demands and expectations of the workers.
It is obvious that the ILO is increasingly subordinated to the anti-labor and anti-grassroots environment created by the harsh neoliberal policies imposed in recent decades by the dominant circles of global capitalism.
There is no doubt that its role and effectiveness have declined significantly since the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
It is time for the UN Declarations and the ILO conventions on democratic and trade union freedoms to be fully implemented in their own operation and for discrimination and exclusion against the WFTU and other independent trade unions to be ended once and for all.
While industrial relations are constantly being deregulated and collective bargaining is shrinking and collective agreements are being violated, while stable and permanent work is being replaced by so-called “flexible” forms, while child labor, instead of being eliminated, is becoming more severe, while utility sector and other social enterprises are rapidly privatized, the otherwise ambitious and correct slogan adopted by the ILO for “decent work”, in practice is a well-sounding slogan but of no consequence.
The same goes for the discussion about the future of work. What is the value of this debate, given that the present of work is so overtly characterized by setbacks and massive undermining of rights and achievements.
For the WFTU it is clear that only with the struggles and with the organized militant demands the goals of the labor movement are realized and social progress is achieved.
That is why, in the framework of this year’s ILC, the WFTU calls upon the workers’ representatives, the class-oriented unions participating or attending, to be active and to demand actual decent work and dignified life for the workers, struggling militantly for:
– Improvement of the living standards of workers and pensioners
– Public and free healthcare for all
– Trade union and democratic freedoms
– Gender equality
– Eradication of racism and xenophobia
– Protection of the environment
– Workers’ solidarity
– Stop imperialistic wars and interventions, dissolution of NATO, destruction of nuclear weapons
– Respect for the right of all the peoples to decide on their own about their present and future
WFTU Headquarters
Source: WFTU