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Jennings spoke to the ILO Conference said UNI is calling for a "new era of business responsibility".

On behalf of UNI, the Global Union for the services and knowledge economy, we welcome the Director General’s call for a “new era of social justice” at this centenary conference.

We also need a new era of business responsibility.



Three years after the financial crash, it’s business as usual: Indecent financial behaviour. CEO bonuses up. Cynical hedge funds ratchetting up market pressure on governments to abandon needy citizens. Rating agency complicity. Profit recovery. Wages down. Bankers bailed out by people who pay the price with millions of lost jobs, schools, hospital beds, welfare and rights.



The IMF/ECB squeeze the life out of workers. Now the EU attempts to choke collective bargaining. ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on the chopping board of cuts. Greece turning its back on ILO standards – and stonewalling an ILO mission. Ireland cutting minimum wages. We expect better.



We are angry because no individual is held to account. The $550 million fine on Goldman Sachs did not dent God's bankers bonus pool. US private equity demand no controls on their bonuses.



To us, globalisation means winner takes all.



UNI Global Union is on the frontline of the new world of work. We have a new services labour market, a new services workforce and a new workplace stripped of dignity and based on precarity. We are working every day to organise people. We are growing.



Too much of the business world consider themselves the “untouchables”.



We expect better of multinationals in Colombia, where workers are not free from fear and assassinations continue. Yet business piles on the misery with union busting, two tier contracts, casualisation. We look forward to continuing our talks with Vice President Garzon.



We expect better in Pakistan where Pakistan Telecoms Ltd dismissed over 300 workers and suspended 250 for taking industrial action. We won reinstatement. 87 are still awaiting an answer. The Government is in breach of Conventions 87 and 98. We support the complaint.



We expect better of T-Mobile: workers on the board in Germany yet how ironic the day that Markel is received at the White House, T-Mobile USA uses union busting lawyers to stop an election.



We expect better of DHL Deutsche Post: workers on the board in Germany yet use lie detectors to root out union sympathisers.



We expect better of IKEA: workers on the board in Sweden yet refuse to play by those rules in a plant in suppliers. Common standards for IKEA flatpacks and meatballs; double standards for workers.



We expect better of TeliaSonera: workers on the board in Sweden yet in Lithuania their local boss tweeted, “Finally began discussions on the futility of trade unions and selfishness with this disease must be fought at the state level”.



We need a breakthrough for a new era of corporate responsibility.



Last week, UNI signed a global agreement with Banco do Brasil, making more than 40 global agreements.



We have proposed this to Wal-Mart. They launched an African safari by purchasing South Africa’s Massmart, which has interests throughout Africa. South Africa shop steward in court asked why a welcome mat for a company that refuses rights of US workers to organise. After the court case and a very public campaign, we finally won safeguards for jobs, rights and local suppliers. Wal-Mart must respect the right to organize, to negotiate everywhere. We demand a global agreement to secure this.



We want the ILO to lift its game to achieve a new era of corporate responsibility. A helpdesk for multinationals is a baby step. Other organizations are lifting theirs: A new human rights’ chapter in the OECD guidelines, and the expected Ruggie Business and Human Rights’ guidelines on Protect, Respect and Remedy.



We want to see more resources and profile given to the push for global agreements. Globalising labour relations should be a theme for a future ILO Conference.



In closing, your centenary conference is shared with the centenary of IBM. Their birthday gift was telling 140,000 staff they are going to be shunted onto freelance contracts. They call it crowd sourcing. We call it “crowding out.”



This is also the 100^th anniversary of the Triangle factory fire in New York that cost the lives of 62 young women. One witness said, “We never went out the front door, we went out the back door one by one. The door opened inward.”



At this 100^th Conference, it is time that workers can always enter through the front door with dignity. That is what the striking Canadian post workers are doing now.



Let us be inspired by the Arab Spring. A new generation demanding justice, democracy, decent work. We are committed to growing unions there, working with young people and women for a new union movement.



ILO, make sure those core labour standards are respected throughout the region. We want a free and independent state for Palestine living in peace side by side with Israel.



From your first convention until today, the quest for peace is at the soul of the ILO. UNI’s last Congress was held in Nagasaki. I am delighted to see my friend Sakurada elected to the Governing Body. I am a peace ambassador for Nagasaki. We call for peace with social justice in a world free from nuclear weapons.



ILO, it is time to deliver social justice and responsibility everyday, everywhere for everyone.