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In his key note speech to the UNI Americas conference, UNI Global Union General Secretary, Philip Jennings laid down the gauntlet to the Right and Neo-Liberalism, accompanied by thunder outside the conference hall.

Jennings said told the more than 600 union leaders gathered in Medellin that the answers to the challenges ahead lay in their hands.

“What better example to follow than that of the Colombian unions who we have just seen receive the Freedom for Fear award for standing up to violence during 50 years of war. 3000 of our brothers and sisters murdered but they could not kill the movement. Unions in Colombia have grown despite being persecuted.

“Let’s take this as our message from Colombia: we can overcome the obstacles; we have the leaders, we have the ideas, we can grow unions and we will make it happen on the road to our UNI Global World Congress in Liverpool in 2018.”

Jennings took to the floor after the moving and highly charged celebration of Colombia’s path to peace and the union movement’s pledge to monitor and be involved in making it sustainable.

“What we have seen makes this one of the greatest days in the history of UNI Global Union – hope it will live in your memory – carry this message back to your family friends and union conferences about how important UNI’s work is,” Jennings said.

Jennings then quoted, son of Liverpool, John Lennon who died on this day in 1980, saying that his Imagine echoed the words of the performers at the conference earlier who had waved goodbye to war, suffering and torture.

“We are here to say hello to a new Colombia, a free Colombia where the new generation is born- free.

We are so happy that Colombia will receive the peace prize – it may be President Santos who picks it up but it’s for the Colombian people. The 7 billion people on the planet are going to share this with you – through television, traditional media and social media. It will a time when the world recognises Colombia and has expectations.

*The Colombian Court must feel the heartbeat of the world’s call for peace when it makes its deliberation next week on the peace process. The biggest asset Colombia has is its people, it is their spirit and resilience that the new Colombia will be built on. Business and government must respect the dignity and beauty of the Colombian people.

“Unions and the people of Colombia have to breathe again. Now only 1% are covered by collective bargaining, and only one in three has some form of social protection, and Colombia languishes at 127 in the OECD league table of wage equality.

“Our message to Colombian business and government is that you need a progressive labour market, because the labour laws now are crippling the country. 70 % don’t have proper work contracts, there is no future for the country with this level of abuse. We say to employers this is a time of peace, amnesty, every employee must be given a regular contract of employment.”

Turning to the wider Americas continent, Jennings urged the union leaders gathered in Medellin not to allow the current neo-liberal wave to rewrite history and the successes of the left during the Pink Wave of the early 2000s.

“The left is not dead, it is critical that we do not let the new right demagogue win, and make a new interpretation of history, that it was somehow a failure and did not respond to the needs of the time. We have been successful, no less so in Brazil, where President Lula brought millions out of poverty and now faces persecution.”

Jennings then moved his attention to the north of the continent and Donald Trump who he described as a racist, divider, wall builder whose pretense of being a friend of the American worker was already being shown to be a lie by the billionaires club he was surrounding himself with as he picks his cabinet. These people were anti-worker and avowedly against unions and the minimum wage.”

“His attitude to the Americas is aggressive and horrible with his pledge to build a wall to divide the continent and deport 12 million Latinos. This is an act of war and we must stand in solidarity with the SEIU as they seek to protect these American Latino workers and their families.

“We must take a stand for our Americas, our world, and our one human family - we will not let this greedy corrupt bunch wreck this planet for us.”