Ending Poverty and Inequality

This theme links up with the world campaign against poverty, as well as global trade, aid and investment issues. The world campaign against poverty is aimed at ending poverty worldwide by increasing development aid, cancelling external debt and promoting fair trade and better global governance, including the full respect of human and trade union rights. The creation of decent work for all as the best weapon for ending poverty is a central trade union demand.

In addition the unions maintain that:
• Trade unions are the legitimate partners for negotiating and obtaining higher wages for workers, thereby reducing inequalities and combating poverty.
• Scrupulous compliance with trade union rights and the ILO conventions must be guaranteed.
• The creation of decent jobs, with social protection, basic rights and a decent salary and working conditions, need to be at the centre of all the strategies for reducing poverty.
• We need a form of globalisation with effective measures for distributing wealth and income fairly.
• The recognition and adoption of a ninth Millennium Goal on decent work and the inclusion of indicators for measuring the progress achieved on that and the other eight goals need to be achieved.
• Sixty per cent of the world’s poor are women and the rate of women’s unemployment worldwide is also higher than that of men. If we want to reverse the trend of feminising poverty, 400 million decent jobs need to be created for women alone. National and international policies need urgently to tackle the problem of the lack of decent work for women worldwide, by fighting to end gender discrimination in labour markets whilst promoting the ratification of the relevant ILO conventions by governments. The approach should include maternity protection and the creation of childcare centres in workplaces, particularly in the export processing zones.
• The governments and the multilateral international organisations should do their utmost to include the informal economy on the global agenda and bring it back within a legal and institutional framework that supports workers’ rights and promotes policies for increasing vocational training, income and social protection.
• The World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank need to be reformed and to focus their policies on securing decent work for all.

Join the Decent Work, Decent Life for Women Campaign
8 March 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) whose origin is based in the protests, strikes and marches of women trade unionists. Their courage and determination to stand up for women workers’ rights and the historical role of women trade unionists in the creation of IWD calls for a very special celebration on 8 March 2008. That is why we encourage you to join the two-year Global Campaign for Decent Work, Decent Life for Women.