THIRD WORLD CONGRESS OF ITUC

05/17-24/2014

Caption 1: Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation – ITUC on the Congress

In the period from 17 to 24 May 2014 the Third World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC was held on which for the first time the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia was present. The congress was attended by PhD Zivko Mitrevski, President of CCM and M.Sc. Lidija Naskovska, Adviser to the President on projects and EU integration.

The one week meeting of the largest democratic movement in the world was concluded with a re-election of Sharan Burrow as General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation - ITUC, represented by 170 million workers worldwide.

Participants have strongly devoted to enlargement of the membership of trade unions, support of the minimum wage and continuation of the fight against "modern slavery". The Congress had adopted emergency resolutions to Turkey after the disaster in the mine Soma and Resolution to Thailand, where the armed forces overtook the power. The main effort by the ITUC General Council is the help to build democratic independent trade unions in the Arab world.

Sharan Burrow won 87% of the votes against the other candidate Jim Baker and became Head of the Council of the International Trade Union Confederation - ITUC whose term runs until 2018. She in her address to the delegates has noted that "this is not a vote for one person, but for an agenda to build a working power around the world". She also stressed that the agenda for this Congress has been chosen by the workers worldwide. They want secure jobs and decent minimum wage, to tame the corporate power. It is an ambitious agenda, she continued, "but working together locally and globally we will make it. The world relies on us".

The ITUC General Council elected João Antonio Felicio of CUT Brazil as ITUC President taking the position from Michael Sommer, who retired from ITUC and DGB Germany. He led ITUC and DGB for 12 years. Maria Fernanda Carvalho Francisco of UNTA-CS Angola and Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson of LO Sweden were elected as the ITUC Deputy Presidents. Jaap Wienen and Wellington Chibebe were elected as the ITUC Deputy General Secretaries.
Congress unions vowed to organize 27 million new members over the next 4 years and will build worker power, will put an end to poverty and low wages in multinational corporation supply chains.

Also they will remain committed to continuing the campaign against forced labor, as demonstrated by the action of the union of Qatar.

The World Congress adopted three global actions: union growth, realization of rights and obtaining secure jobs, which are placed on the ITUC agenda for the next 4 years.

During the Congress, through electronic voting list of 9 CEOs was elected the worst boss in the world. With over 20 thousand votes in the direction of abuse of workers' rights, violation of national laws and tax evasion Jeff Bezos from Amazon U.S. was elected with 22 % of the total number of votes. The same day when Bezos was awarded the worst boss in the world, he announced his plan using of 10 thousand robots that will replace workers by 2015. This U.S. Corporation operates globally with contempt for the dignity and rights of workers.

The next ITUC Congress will be held in 2018.