Workers’ rights in Taiwan
A new report by the ITUC on core labour standards in Taiwan (known at the WTO as “Chinese Taipei”), published to coincide with the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) review of its trade policies, finds that various categories of employees are barred from forming and joining unions, and that penalties in the law are insufficient to prevent anti—union discrimination. Furthermore, strikes are impeded in the form of long and complex procedures, although reforms to the Labour Union Law currently before Parliament should address some of these issues.
Iran: ITUC and ITF Demand Government Fulfill Promise to Free Osanloo, and Insist on Release of 52 Others
The ITUC and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) have written to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisting that the authorities fulfill their promise to release imprisoned trade unionist Mansour Osanloo, and calling on them to free all the other 52 trade unionists imprisoned in the country due to their activities in defence of workers’ rights.
G20 failing to meet jobs challenge
G20 Leaders risk sleepwalking into a double-dip recession due to their haste to halve fiscal deficits by 2013 or even sooner, according to an international trade union delegation in Toronto at the end of the G20 Summit.
Second ITUC World Congress concludes by electing its first female General Secretary
On Friday 25 June, Sharan Burrow was elected General Secretary of the ITUC. On the fifth and final day of its second World Congress in Vancouver (Canada) Sharan Burrow was elected to succeed Guy Ryder, the first General Secretary of the ITUC, the world’s largest international trade union organisation, founded in Vienna in 2006. Sharan Burrow will leave her post of President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), that she has held since 2000, to become the first woman at the helm of the ITUC.
Unions of the world unite for Peace, Security and Democracy
ITUC World Congress delegates today adopted a resolution that reconfirms the ITUC’s commitment to achieving a peaceful, democratic, secure and stable world, where people from all countries coexist in mutual respect and tolerance, free from the threat of armed conflict, terrorism or other forms of violence or occupation.