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UNI Apro Women hand in hand with World Women to achieve equality

Published: 1 April 2012
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 The 13th UNI Apro Women’s Committee meeting was held on 28 March 2012, Melbourne, Australia. As this year the UNI World Women’s Committee was also held in our region on 29 – 30 March, women from UNI Apro had a valuable opportunity to observe the work done at the global level and to share our achievements with sisters in other regions.



Prior to the annual committee, the UNI Apro Women’s Forum was organized on 27 March with the aim for newly-elected members to get to know each other and to discuss how to implement concrete activities in order to achieve the objectives set in the last Conference. The focus was on how to network and strengthen cooperation among all women representatives not only in the women’s committee but also in the executive committee as well as other sectors and inter-professional groups both at regional and global levels. Since the resolution on 40% representation was unanimously adopted in Nagasaki World Congress and then Manila Regional Conference, the regional statute has been amended to have an additional women’s seat per sub-region in the regional executive committee and to have the President and Deputy President from the women’s committee, in the regional management committee.



The meetings were attended by 10 committee members and 16 observers from Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Australia and New Zealand. Titular members on the UNI Apro Executive Committee and UNI World Executive Board were also invited. It was a great honor to have Bro. Joe De Bruyn, UNI President and Sis. Denise McGuire, UNI World Women’s President with us.



Tamami Uda, President of UNI Apro Women welcomed all the participants and guests, and thanked Christopher for his continuous support to women’s activities and to achieve gender equality in our region where there is still much to do.



Bro. Joe mentioned in his opening remarks that the 2012 is a critical year for the SDA and the Australian trade union movement due to the review of the labor law, with employers challenging key fundamental clauses in the Fair Work Act, the review of national minimum standards with employers similarly challenging basic rights of workers such as rostering working hours, entitlement to penalty rates of pay, entitlement to paid holidays and leave. Particularly, the challenges have been most heated from the employers in the retail / commerce sector.



After brief updates and follow-up of the three key issues in the Nagasaki Women’s Conference, Sis. Denise advised that ideal equalities policies and procedures can be adapted around the world to set standards for everyone and encouraged UNI Apro women to work together.



Bro. Christopher Ng, UNI Apro Regional Secretary assured that there are mechanisms and facilities to generate opportunities for meaningful interaction among women leaders and unionists, in particular those who have been elected in UNI and UNI Apro structures. He also emphasized the significance of the UNI Apro region, growth rates and potential areas such as in Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia, and the critical importance in this region to organize workers into trade unions. He said, “However, it is not adequate that there are women leaders in our structures. This is only a first step and more effective ways to empower women leaders in various sectors and the regional executive committee are urgently needed.”



The global campaigns initiated by UNI Equal Opportunities were introduced by Veronica Fernandez Mendez. The UNI International Women’s Day website has a variety of participatory sections such as

“That’s why” – collection of inspiring stories and encouragement of prominent women leaders

“Wave your flag” – collection of pictures of our colleagues holding messages.

“Global Action” – achievements by our women in each country are shown on the map

“Celebrate / Fight!” – tweet your ideas to make your voice heard

Active participation is encouraged. http://www.uni-iwd.org/



The committee shared many success stories and lessons with other members. Those best practices in our region will be put on the Global Action map. Yoko Ogawa, Director for UNI Apro Women said “We want to hear more and more stories.” She also reported on the latest figures of the collected union leaders’ signatures to show their commitment to the ongoing UNI 40for40 campaign as well as women’s representation in each sector, group and executive committee.



From the Forum and the following discussion by sector group, the committee concluded some recommendations to raise at the UNI Apro Executive Committee by President Tamami Uda and Deputy President Maxine Gay.

To try to increase women Titular members to realize 40% step by step.

To have a standing agenda item on gender equality in every committee meeting. This includes the women in the sector concerned are required to speak on behalf of UNI Apro Women Committee to deliver the women’s committee’s discussion and recommendations etc to be reflected in the sector. All the Titular members of the sector committee are also required to report on their statistics of members by gender and efforts on integration of women in each organization every year so that they can review the progress.

To report on each sector information back to UNI Apro Women after the annual sector committee and Executive Committee.



All the participants from UNI Apro had a great opportunity to observe and learn from the UNI World Women’s Committee and informative presentations from ACTU President and our Australian affiliates on their organizing. From our region, Magdalene Kong, Divisional Director updated the committee on “labor migration and trafficking” and our efforts made so far in cooperation with our affiliates in Malaysia and Indonesia.



Finally all the UNI Apro Women’s committee members expressed sincere appreciations to the host union SDA and especially to Sis. Therese Bryant, Vice President of UNI World Women from UNI Apro, who had worked very hard to make a series of events a great success.



Go to Flickr for more pictures