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On the 22nd June 2010, between 6 and 7 pm, the international “Decent Work for Decent Life” campaign organized a side event in Vancouver, at the occasion of the 2nd ITUC congress.
This event was organised by the five organizations that have launched the Campaign entitled “Decent work for Decent life”, during the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007. These organizations are the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Global Progressive Forum (GFF), World Solidarity (WSM), European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and SOLIDAR.
The key speakers of the panel were:
Sharan Burrow, current ITUC President who was elected in Vienna during the founding congress of the ITUC in 2006. She is also a board member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, founder of the Global Progressive Forum as well as its current chair. He is former Prime Minister of Denmark and currently member of the European Parliament.
André Kiekens, Secretary General of World Solidarity, Belgian solidarity organization of the Belgian Christian Labor Movement which supports trade unions and social movements in more than 30 countries, worldwide.
Joseph Weidenholzer, from Austria , and former lecturer at different universities. He is currently President of SOLIDAR, a European network of NGO’s active in the field of social development.
The moderator of this event was Uzziel TWAGILIMANA, Resident representative of World Solidarity (WSM) and Africa regional coordinator of programmes, whose office is based in Benin, West Africa.
The objectives
The “Decent Work for Decent Life” Alliance, has been campaigning for decent work to become a priority in policy making at national, regional and international level and to make it a cross cutting issue in social, trade and development policies. The siden event provided the initiators of the campaign to:
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Congratulate ITUC affiliates and participants from other civil society organizations for their support to the campaign;
- Demonstrate the achievements of this campaign at international, regional and national level
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Call upon participants to continue campaigning
Achievements of the campaigns
Each of the above panelists has highlighted one specific aspect of the campaign.
For Sharon Burrow, one of the major achievements was the Call of Action in Lisbon, and its subsequent dissemination worldwide. Thanks to this campaign, the following results were observed:
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A new developmental model centered around the concept of decent work is recognized at the international level: social protection, labour rights, compliance measures with collective bargaining, commitment to creating decent jobs.
- Recognition of the campaign by various policy makers.
- Commitment of UN agencies to the decent work agenda
- Organization of 2 decent work days (7th October) in various countries with the active involvement of ITUC members that has allowed popularizing and increasing the awareness on this concept.
Poul Rasmussen emphasized the support of political progressive forces to the campaign, which has contributed to the results above. Given the context of the effect of the global economic crisis, he is convinced that the task is not easy but the fight for decent work is genuine and will continue to receive adequate support.
André Kiekens put emphasis on the major achievements of the decent work campaign at the national level in Belgium, thanks to the action of World Solidarity, the trade unions, and other social actors:
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A survey confirmed that more than 40% of the Belgian population knows about the concept of decent work.
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The parliament passed a resolution to consider decent work as a cross cutting issue in all policy development
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Decent work is recognized by the Ministry of Development cooperation as a cross cutting concern.
The factors that have allowed achieving this goal are:
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Targeting policy makers and the employers for this campaign.
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Appropriate communication tools with clear messages.
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Strategic alliance and cooperation with the media.
Joseph Weidenholzer has shown how the 33 members of SOLIDAR across 44 countries were involved in the campaign, through the feeding of knowledge in various communities, deepening coalition structures, organizing events on decent work in Eastern Europe. The campaign was a sign of active and successful cooperation between the trade union movement, civil society and progressive forces.
After this panel, all participants recognized the need to continue this campaign at all levels, share the results and best practices of the campaign, consolidate synergy of actions between various social (trade unions, civil society) organisations and progressive political forces and develop strategic alliances with the media.
Article By Uzziel Twagilimana, Vancouver, 22nd June 2010
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