Posted: Tuesday, 10 May 2011

A year after being elected General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – the first woman to lead an international labour organization – Sharan Burrow came to Vancouver with a message of praise and encouragement. “You, your unions and your Canadian Labour Congress are a bright spot in a world where unions and workers are under attack,” she told delegates to the CLC convention.

Burrow told delegates how the ITUC and its member unions are organizing working people around the world with a focus on “jobs, decent work and social protection”. She spoke of the role that unions in Tunisia, Egypt and across the Middle East have played in the overthrow of dictatorships, and the role those same unions are playing in the new governments that are taking shape.

She described for delegates the ITUC’s new focus on global corporations that abuse workers rights. She also served a notice of warning to companies that observe labour rights at home yet exploit people elsewhere in the world.

She also talked about the urgent need to focus on green jobs, on the “decision for life” campaign that’s touching the lives of 100,000 women in the world’s poorest countries, and on the need for labour activists to defeat politicians who won’t support labour’s values.