Emma Mashinini joined a long list of trade union heroes to have received the UNI Global Union Freedom from Fear award after she was honoured at the World Congress in Cape Town.
Written by FINANSFORBUNDET/ FSU-Norway
The General Secretary of COSATU Zwelinzima Vavi received a stirring reception from the over 2000 delegates at the UNI World Congress in Cape Town.
In a barnstorming address to the UNI World Congress in South Africa, author and journalist Owen Jones delivered a stinging appraisal of global capitalism, oppression and injustice. In what UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings called “one of the all-time great congress speeches”, Jones offered hope in the face of adversity, urging “If Apartheid can fall, then all other oppression can fall as well.”
Cape Town, 9 December 2014: The world will need 1.8 billion new jobs by 2050, a report by UNI Global Union and the New Economics Foundation has found.
ILO Director General Guy Ryder called on unions to grow and to fight inequality during a speech at the UNI World Congress in Cape Town.
In front of a packed Congress hall, Ryder backed UNI’s Including You push for an inclusive economy.
“Today, the struggle for social justice, for fairness at work, for decent jobs still requires that we show that same perseverance and the same determination to include everybody. And that is the challenge UNI picks up by “Including You” in the movement and in the world of work we want to create.
Indian Delegates and the officials of the newly formed National Confederation of UNITES - (NCU India) welcomed the UNI Global union's President Elect Ann Selin with a traditional Indian shawal in Cape Town yesterday.
NCU officials thanked Sis Ann Selin's union PAM and SASK Finland for all the solidarity support extended to orgnize the IT enabled service employees in India. Birth of the new confederation NCU was only possible thanks to the unstinted support from SASK Finland said Milind Nadkarni, President of UNI Indian Liaison Council
At the 4th UNI World Congress, General Secretary of the ITUC, Sharan Burrow raised the roof with an impassioned speech that endorsed and commended UNI’s “Breaking Through” plan.
“You are breaking through. You are organizing against injustice and you are inspiring workers everywhere to hope, to act and to organize for rights safe work and fair wages. You are inspiring working people to fight to tame corporate power.”
UNI Global Union General Secretary, Philip Jennings, in a rallying call to the 2000 UNI delegates gathered in Cape Town, said UNI was sticking with its “Breaking Through" mission “no ifs or buts”.
Jennings said that “Breaking Through” which began life at the last world congress in Nagasaki 2010 would continue to be the road map UNI would follow all the way through Cape Town to Liverpool 2018:
“Our Breaking Through plan was a call to action to build our organising power.
A call to action:
Anti-Apartheid activist, former Robben Island prisoner and “living legend” Ahmed Kathrada received the Freedom from Fear award during an emotional opening day of the UNI World Congress in Cape Town.
