Read this article in:
English
3 October, 2022IndustriALL affiliates around the world are mobilizing for a day of action against inequality and for a just future on 7 October.
On 7 October, World Day for Decent Work, IndustriALL affiliates around the world will take action to highlight the growing crisis of inequality and demand a just future. Working people everywhere are facing a cost of living crisis, with wage rises not meeting soaring inflation and rising energy costs, combined with attacks on unions and workers’ rights.
This perfect storm of crises needs a coordinated response, and IndustriALL has identified the building blocks of a just future, including higher wages, fair taxation, sustainable industrial policy and respect for unions and human rights.
Unions will send a message to multinational companies and governments of the world that it is time to pay up and invest in building a decent future. IndustriALL vice presidents have written to affiliates in their region, asking them to join in a coordinated global day of action by identifying and campaigning on the building blocks that are most relevant to their members.
Rose Omamo, vice president for the Sub-Saharan Africa region, said:
“The wage race to the bottom in many of the Sub Saharan African economies as a result of increased labour flexibility coupled with great uncertainties in a world in crisis due to deepening inequalities coupled with a warming planet which is set to have irreversible consequences on lives, this region will demand more robust and drastic policy changes for a just world that leaves no one behind.”
Garbiñe Espejo, vice president for the Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus regions, said:
“The fact that in Europe we are planning a whole succession of trade union mobilizations against the precariousness of employment and wage conditions is nothing more than a manifestation of the unjust reversal of the crisis against socio-labour rights. That is why, from this region, we are launching the solidarity campaign for wage and labour dignity in the world, from the international trade union action of European organizations for equality and against the impoverishment of living and working conditions in the world.”
Hashmeya Alsadawe, vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, said:
“Our region, the Middle East and North Africa, is witnessing rising tension and successive crises and hostility to the work of free trade unions by most governments, with a lack of respect for international labour standards.”
Akira Takakura, vice president for the Asia Pacific region, said:
“The Asia and Pacific region is not an exception. In our region, actual wage growth has lagged behind labour productivity. Workers, especially in South Asia, are suffering from soaring inflation including essential food prices and having difficulties to make ends meet.”