News

UNI Global Union welcomed the focus on global campaigns to abolish nuclear weapons at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.



UNI is part of an international trade union campaign against nuclear weapons and will highlight this work at its World Congress in Nagasaki, Japan, in November.



Click here to sign UNI's petition calling for nuclear disarmament.

Gareth Evans, co-chair with Yoriko Kawaguchi of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, warned participants at the World Economic Forum that we can no longer afford to be complacent about the scale of the risk of a nuclear incident.

Evans said that during the last 10 years the world had been sleep walking to disaster. With a gigantic global arsenal of 23,000 nuclear weapons, he warned that the world could be wiped out quicker from a nuclear event than by climate change disasters. He added that it was sheer dumb luck that there had not been a nuclear explosion since WWII.

On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was the second and to-date last city to be hit by a nuclear weapon.



Evans welcomed the decision of UNI Global Union to organise its World Congress in Nagasaki. He said it was time for the people of the world to awaken to the ever present dangers of the use of nuclear weapons.



Prominent peace campaigner Larry Brilliant said it was time for the world to “energize” around these issues. It is in the zeitgeist for us to push for global zero, i.e. a world without nuclear weapons, he said.



UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings said that if 2009 was the year of an articulation of hopes then 2010 has to be a year of delivery on those hopes.



“With the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty conference hosted by the United Nations in May and Nuclear Security Summit chaired by US President Barack Obama to take place in April, we have important opportunities to make progress,” Jennings said.



Jennings will be meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in Tokyo next week to discuss the UNI World Congress and the broader push by the trade union movement for a nuclear weapon-free world.





South Africa: prominent support for Cape Town 2014

During his participation in the events in Davos, Jennings has received enthusiastic support from South African government leaders for the plan to hold the 2014 UNI World Congress in Cape Town.



“South Africa continues to be an inspiration to trade union members around the world and they are looking forward to holding the first UNI Congress on African soil,” Jennings told the South African delegation to the World Economic Forum.



In a meeting attended by South African government ministers, business leaders and other Davos participants, the inspiring example of South Africa was warmly received. Those present promised to pull out all the stops for a World Congress in 2014.