WFTU General Secretary Pambis Kyritsis gave his introductory speech, where he welcomed the members of the Presidential Council and thanked from his heart the comrades of CTB-Brazil for hosting and organizing the 2024 PCM ensuring its success.
In his speech he analyzed the international situation in the light of the imperialist aggression and the continuous attacks the workers face in every corner of the globe. Highlighting the remarkable action of the WFTU during 2023 in safeguarding the workers’ rights and the internationalist solidarity of the class-oriented trade union movement, the General Secretary expressed the sureness that this Presidential Council Meeting will discuss and take decisions which will make 2024 a militant year, full of struggles and victories!
The full speech of the General Secretary:
Dear Comrades,
Allow me to welcome you to this important annual meeting of the WFTU’s Presidential Council on behalf of the Secretariat of our Federation.
These sessions, in which we have the opportunity to meet face to face and exchange experiences and opinions, to get closer to each other and get to know each other better, provide some breathing space for each of us. It is the fuel that powers our daily activities.
Therefore, I feel the need to thank CTB from the bottom of my heart for hosting this session and providing all the proper conditions for this session to be comfortable and successful.
In this period the nature of imperialism is once again revealed in all its hypocrisy, cynicism, and inhumanity. The massacre and genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza continue unabated and this heinous crime is being shamefully attempted to be presented as Israel’s right of self-defense.
Right of self-defense of whom? A state that for decades has illegally occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories by the force of arms, that has uprooted and displaced millions of people out of their homes and lands, that denies the Palestinians the right to have their own independent state, and continues the settlements, murders, and arrests, establishing in practice an Apartheid regime.
We are proud because the WFTU from the very first moment, stood by the Palestinian people and highlighted the real cause of instability, violence, and unrest in Palestine and the wider Middle East, which is none other than the Israeli occupation and settlements, the usurpation of the rights of the Palestinian people that has been going on for decades.
We are proud that millions of workers in tens of countries around the world are mobilizing, with the WFTU flags, in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
I regret to say that within the International Trade Union Movement, not everyone can feel proud. Unfortunately, some have lost their voice and remain silent in the face of this crime. They insist on an equal distance stance and they are lost in their ‘yes, but’ positions, equating the perpetrators with the victims.
We demand justice and freedom for Palestine, immediate ceasefire, and the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
We demand an end to NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine, which they maintain by all means, and to replace weapons with diplomacy.
The struggle for peace is inherent and integrated with the broader struggles of the labor movement for a better world, but this struggle for us has a specific content. It means first and foremost a struggle for the dismantling of NATO and all military coalitions, a struggle to defend the right of every people to choose the path of their economic and social development without interventions, sanctions, blockades, and economic wars. Against the double-standards policy where international law ends up being in practice the law of the strong.
Dear Comrades
The period in which we are holding this year’s regular session of the Presidential Council is characterized by the generalization and deepening of the capitalist crisis, the dramatic widening of social inequalities, and new and harsh attacks on democratic and trade union freedoms.
The high cost of living and inflation are brutally undermining workers’ and pensioners’ living standards. The right to organize and collective bargaining are under attack.
The high cost of living and inflation are brutally undermining workers’ and pensioners living standards. The right to organize and collective bargaining are under attack.
Individual contracts, privatizations, outsourcing, teleworking and “service leasing” are just some of the forms taken by this harsh neoliberal attack.
Major social achievements such as social security and public health care are being privatized, while the authoritarian and arbitrary increase of the retirement age continues methodically.
The audacity of employers has now reached such levels that even historic ILO conventions, such as Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize of 1948, to which the WFTU had a decisive contribution in its formulation, and which for decades was considered by everybody to be accepted and self-evident that it protects the right to strike, is now openly challenged and through various maneuvers and collusion they seek to undermine and neutralize them.
The workers do not passively accept the neoliberal capitalist, anti-grassroots, and anti-worker attacks. Despite the superior arsenal of capital and its political representatives in the means and mechanisms of manipulating public opinion, despite the blackmail and methods of intimidation applied openly or hidden in all regions of the world, the workers are resisting and refusing to pay the bill of the capitalist crisis. Under the guidance of class-oriented trade unions, they choose the path of struggle, the only decent way to defend their trade union, social and political rights.
With militant mobilizations in all corners of the globe, they demand the satisfaction of their contemporary needs. Social security, health and safety conditions at work, free and universal public education, dignified life for pensioners and the elderly, and possibilities of creative and quality leisure.
The sharpening of state repression and authoritarianism is the response of the bourgeois governments to the just popular demands; unfortunately, very often under the cooperation or tolerance of surrendered trade union leaders along with yellow unions.
It is obvious that employers and governments are trying to manipulate the workers’ struggles, counting mainly on the role of the yellow unions and the surrendered leaders.
For us, it wasn’t a surprise that the case of Luca Visentini, the ITUC General Secretary arrested in the well-known bribery scandal, was treated so generously by the media in Europe, as well as it was not a surprise the way the ITUC itself handled his case. It simply confirms that the incorporation of the leadership of ITUC and ETUC to the neoliberal, anti-labor policies, the absence of a substantial reaction on its part, clearly coexists with the corruption and use of Trade Union positions for purposes alien to the class interests of the workers.
Dear comrades
Today and tomorrow, here in São Paulo, the Presidential Council in this regular session will evaluate the action and presence of our Federation during the past year and formulate an Action plan for 2024. An Action Plan that will allow us to further expand our role and intervention among workers and their unions, on the path of class struggles in defense of their very own genuine class interests. Without bureaucratic leaderships and yellow unions that undermine the effectiveness and militant capacity of workers, serving the interests of employers and capital. A program of Actions and initiatives leading to the organizational strengthening and the even more collective and effective functioning of all the regional, sectoral, local, and thematic structures that constitute the great edifice of the WFTU.
In 2024 we should expect that the world will continue to be driven in an environment of instability and upheaval. Upheavals that seem to create some new realities on the global geopolitical chessboard.
For example, the creation of the BRICS, almost two decades ago, and their evolution into a rapidly expanding and orienting alliance puts the parameters of Globalization under the perspective of different emerging economic and geopolitical interests. Interests that are differentiating and, in many cases, now openly conflict with the dominant Western imperialist interests which as it is known in recent decades have imposed the structure of the global system of international and economic relations.
The war in Ukraine is, without doubt, a reflection of these upheavals.
The WFTU, in the global geopolitical balances that are being formed, has a duty to promote, defend and advance the class interests of the workers so that the challenge to the existing rotten, imperialist system, the global economic and wider geopolitical relations, is not aimed at redistributing the pie, but to abolish and overthrow it – it is our duty to fight for its replacement with global economic and political relations based on solidarity and equality, respect for the independence and sovereignty of peoples and the right to choose the path of development, to reduce and eliminate the economic and social gap between the rich and the poor.
This is the direction in which the WFTU participated with its President in the meeting of the BRICS Trade Union Forum in South Africa, the same direction in which we recently participated in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in processes that bring together Trade Union Organizations from the countries of the former Soviet Union with WFTU affiliated organizations from the Arab world, and in which we are working for even greater improvement in the WFTU’s relations with the ACFTU.
The visit of the WFTU Secretariat to China, at the invitation of the ACFTU leadership, is scheduled for next September. Its purpose is to give a dynamic momentum to the WFTU’s relations with the Chinese trade unions, and our aim will be to make these relations more practical through joint actions and interventions at the international level.
Dear Comrades
In 2023 we had to implement a fairly ambitious action plan after a fairly long period of mandatory restrictions on our activities due to the COVID pandemic.
I sincerely believe that we have responded very well to the implementation of this ambitious plan and have developed a wealth of activity at all levels, centrally, regionally and locally.
The detailed report of action for 2023 is in your hands and you can evaluate it. Therefore, I will not go into much details.
But allow me to make some brief remarks, which I consider important for a discussion, that will focus on our action in all its forms, as a mean of credibly communicating the principles and values that the WFTU stands for, and expanding its prestige and influence in the international trade union movement.
With the active support and encouragement of the Secretariat, 2023 was a year of organizational activity at all levels. Particularly encouraging and noteworthy is the activity of the TUIs affiliated with the WFTU. In 2023, 3 international congrsses of major sectors have been held. TUI Transport had its 15th Congress in Athens, Greece 21-22 November 2023. TUI PS&A had its 14th Congress in Bogotá, Colombia 21-23 November 2023 and TUI Chemistry & Energy had its 4th Congress in Paris, France on 28 November, 2023. There are also 4 other conferences scheduled, TUI Agriculture in Senegal, TUI P&R in Athens, TUI M.M.M. in Buenos Aires and BIFU in Chenai.
FISE, TUI TexGal and TUI Hotur with the assistance of the Secretariat are also in the preparation stage. It is intended that these congresses will take place in 2024. UITTB is operating normally and its regular congress is scheduled for 2025.
The year under review also saw the International Congress of Working Women held in Senegal on 22-23 November, thus renewing the Working Women Committee of the WFTU.
In 2023 the WFTU International Campaigns have been expanded and enriched.
The International Day of Action for Peace on the 1st of September, as decided by the Rome Congress, continued for the second year. The 3rd of October, the established International Day of Action on the occasion of the founding anniversary of the WFTU, focused on the struggle for democratic and trade union rights against authoritarianism and neoliberal aggression.
We established the 26th of July as a day of international solidarity with the people of Cuba. We mobilized with international calls for solidarity actions in struggles that were ongoing such as in France, Peru, Argentina, and of course with a multitude of campaigns and activities in solidarity with the heroic people of Palestine.
We paid particular attention to our interventions within international organizations and to the relations of the WFTU with regional organizations with which we are linked by historical ties with common struggles and orientations. We participated in OATTU Congress, we signed a protocol of understanding and cooperation with ICATU. We participated creatively in the congress of the Arab Labor Organization.
At the ILO we have made the presence and positions of the class-oriented trade union movement visible. Both in the ILC and within the Governing Body in which the WFTU maintain observer status.
Our ambition is of course for the 2024 action plan to be even rich and more multilayered and to develop dynamically and in a balanced way on all the axes of WFTU’s action.
The coordination and guidance of the struggles, the expression of solidarity and internationalism, the dissemination of information, the intervention in international organizations and especially in the ILO, the continuous upgrading of the educational work within the workers and of course the organizational development and the expansion of the prestige and influence of the WFTU.
It is important at this time to pay attention to the realization of our regional congresses, as well as the TUI congresses that are delayed. Already the regional meetings in Europe, Latin America and the Arab World have been scheduled. We should also launch congresses for the committees we have set up within the WFTU. The World Congress for Young Workers is already scheduled for June.
TUI’s action must remain at the center of our attention. Through this action we come closer to the contemporary needs and daily struggles of the workers in the sectors they work in. Closer to the demands for work regulated by collective agreements and for guaranteed labor rights and trade union freedoms. In May we are recommending a meeting of the Secretariat with the TUI leaders to address existing problems and to strengthen the role and presence of the TUIs of the WFTU in the sectors they represent.
The action plan will naturally continue to be dominated by actions of internationalist solidarity, something that has characterized our Federation since its foundation.
April will be a month of solidarity with the Palestinian people. If conditions allow, with a presence on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories. The 1st of May is also by definition a day dedicated to international solidarity, while July, and especially the 26th of July, which is a significant date for the Cuban revolution, will be used for an organized campaign of solidarity with Cuba.
Our ambition is to organize, in the framework of actions planned to take place in Geneva on the occasion of the ILC, a Global Conference on democratic and trade union freedoms of workers which have been targeted and attacked in recent years. In this process, it will be an opportunity to reactivate the Committee on Democratic and Trade Union Freedoms that we have created as WFTU.
At the same time, we will continue and intensify our demand for a more democratic way of functioning of the ILO that ensures representativeness and pluralism of views, values that the ILO as an organization is supposed to uphold.
This year at the ILC will also be an election year for the Governing Body. We know that the way elections are conducted is tailor-made for the ITUC and does not leave much room for a truly representative Workers’ Group in the Governing Body. Nevertheless, we will have to assess the facts and consider our intervention so that whatever opportunities there are to make use of the electoral process we can use them.
Significant work is also planned in the field of trade union and ideological education, as well as in the field of information dissemination, information exchange and monitoring of developments on issues concerning workers. An important development in the field of education is also the initiative of creating the International Labor Institute by old, distinguished WFTU cadres as well as scientists and academics linked to the class-oriented trade union movement. With this Institute the WFTU Secretariat decided that we should have a close cooperation and use its presence to upgrade the WFTU’s educational activity.
Another key issue is that of the financial operation of the WFTU, to which we must of course pay special attention. It is obvious, comrades, that we need more resources in order to be able to meet the demands that life puts before us.
Tomorrow at our meeting we will have the opportunity to discuss and to take decisions. Decisions that take us one more step forward in the collective effort for a more effective and credible WFTU at all levels.
At last, I would like to comment on the fact that in our session today we have to approve the application of 19 new organizations from all continents that have applied for affiliation to the WFTU during last year. I consider this to be a measurable and objective element which shows that with our action, with our interventions and with our firm class orientation, the WFTU is becoming more attractive and expanding its prestige and influence.
There is no doubt that the 18th WFTU Congress in Rome gave a major boost to all aspects of our action.
Through the Rome Declaration we did not only reaffirm the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist character of the WFTU, its commitment to the principles and values of the class struggle and its non-negotiable commitment to the defense of the autonomous, democratic functioning of trade unions away from bureaucracy, careerism and corruption, but we have also set before us in a clear way a framework of priorities which constitute a guideline for action for the international class-oriented trade union movement.
For the class-oriented International Trade Union movement, for the workers who resist, who do not compromise with oppression, discrimination and exploitation, there is only one path of dignity: the path of the struggles.
The weapon of the working class is Solidarity and Internationalism.
The system that generates crisis and reproduces exploitation can be defeated. With our united and organized struggles a world free of wars and imperialist interventions, free of exploitation and discrimination; a world where work will be permanent and stable, regulated and safe, is achievable.
– Long live the Trade Union Class Struggles
– Long live solidarity and internationalism
