Presented by Hassan Yussuff on Thursday, 24 June 2010

(Check Against Delivery)

Sisters and Brothers, I bring you greetings on behalf of Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, and all the officers of the CLC.

It’s my pleasure to be here, and to speak at this event.

I am particularly proud of the work of the Canadian Labour Congress and its affiliates regarding HIV and AIDS over the years.

Unions were among the first to recognize the devastating impact of HIV-AIDS on workers, their families and their communities around the world.

We also recognized that significant work needed to be done to help workers and their unions around the world deal with the issue on a multi-dimensional level.

In 2002, the delegates to the CLC convention adopted a resolution that established the HIV-AIDS Labour Fund, so that the CLC’s affiliated unions could pool union resources for greater impact.

Union members donate to the fund which supports programs to:

• improve the ability of unions to bargain and secure benefit packages that include HIV prevention programs, care facilities and treatment;
• produce training materials;
• support peer education and counselling programs geared to specific sectors, age groups, couples and sexual preference;
• build capacity through worker exchanges.

While we conduct specific projects abroad, this year we worked on strategies and partnerships that would engage in a collective political response from our respective realities.

In AIDS we have an epidemic that is killing workers and their families.

It is holding back the economic progress of many nations.

It is wreaking havoc on social institutions like education, continuing a cycle of poverty that allows the disease to flourish.

Every year, thousands of workers die – workers with valuable skills with much to contribute to the economic vitality of their countries.

The labour force of some developing nations is declining at alarming rates as a result.

There is a huge imbalance between industrialized and developing countries on the availability of treatment and HIV prevention services.

Reaching the Millennium Development Goal on HIV/AIDS – to halt and reverse the spread of the epidemic by 2015 – requires far greater access to HIV prevention services and AIDS treatment, care and support than is currently available, and requires the political will of industrialized nations to contribute to the coordinated response needed to halt the epidemic.

Working in partnership with ITUC-Africa, the CLC developed a program of joint advocacy to initiate country-level action across oceans and continents – to put pressure on the G8 countries to help us reach the Millennium Development Goal on HIV/AIDS.

Universal access to HIV-AIDS prevention programs, treatment, and care – including anti-retroviral therapy to reduce new infections.

With ITUC-Africa, we focused on the G8 and G20 meetings happening this weekend in Toronto – with a call for universal access.

Over the course of this year, there were embassy actions – with union members around the world visiting Canadian embassies in over forty countries.

We launched a petition campaign and conducted extensive lobbying and strategic communications aimed at convincing the Canadian representative to the G8 summit – the Canadian Sherpa – to incorporate universal access into the final outcomes of the G8.

I want to thank the ITUC-Africa affiliates who participated in the campaign by writing letters, calling for meetings with embassy officials in their countries, holding press conferences and mobilizing workers from all sectors and to Brother Kwasi Adu-Amankwa.

I also want to thank the individual efforts of the HIV/AIDS Focal Point Persons in the 22 trade union centres from Africa.

Committed trade unionists like Brother Emmanual Komlan Agbenou who set the pace collecting signatures and challenging us to redouble our efforts.

To the General Secretary of the CSTT and deputy general of ITUC-Africa, please pass on our sincere thanks to Brother Agbenou.

Thanks to your efforts, the CLC continues to be engaged in constructive and meaningful behind-the-scenes dialogue with the Canadian Sherpa on this issue, because of the pressure of your advocacy over these last months.

This dialogue is only possible because we were visible, not only in Canada but in countries around the world.

It is a vivid example of the impact that direct country-level action can have on the outcome of a summit.

Our challenge now is how we continue the pressure on the G8 nations who provide the bulk of the financial resources to support programs that will implement the summit promises – in particular, programs where unions can make a difference where it counts the most – in workplaces, at the bargaining table, and through training and education.

If we are to meet the Millennium Development Goal to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, we have our work cut out for us.

We are committed to working with unions around the world to hold our governments’ collective feet to the fire.

They must live up to their commitments.

But it will require ongoing direct country-level actions, working in partnership and in solidarity with our sisters and brothers globally to ensure they do.

And I know everyone in this room is committed to making sure the industrialized nations live up to their commitments.

Thank you, and I look forward to the day when we can say, together we defeated this epidemic.