We’re still at the ITF – International Transport Workers’ Federation Congress, where today I introduced a motion on ‘The Rights of Transport Workers’, which was approved unanimously by all Congress delegates.
Our rights are under attack. The fundamental rights that our movement, our colleagues, our friends, our sisters and brothers have fought and died for again need our protection.
For decades we have seen the forces of the free market try to take away our right to strike, our right to protest, and our right to collectively bargain.
Privatisation, subcontracting, hedge funds, tax cuts, spending cuts – these are the weapons of greed and profiteering we continue to resist against every day.
But today, an old enemy has re-appeared.
The far right has regrouped. They exploit inequality and choose to blame the most vulnerable.
These thugs—sometimes wearing uniforms, sometimes wearing suits—have marched on our streets before. Again, they threaten our rights and endanger peace and justice.
We defeated them before. We shall defeat them again.
We shall unite to defend our right to decent work, to a safe working environment, to a welfare state with well-funded public services.
How do we do this?
Sisters and brothers, today, on behalf of the ITF Executive Board, I am proud to move a motion that leads the international fight for our rights.
This motion demands an organising strategy for all workers—informal, migrant, temporary, precarious, gig workers and all other non-standard forms of employment.
Because we know we are only as powerful as the weakest, most exploited link in our chain of solidarity around the world. An injury to one, is an injury to all.
This motion demands that we lead a global campaign of solidarity action to defend the right to strike.
Our right to withhold our labour is as old and important as the ITF itself.
The ITF began 128 years ago when maritime workers went on strike in solidarity with workers overseas that most had never met.
This motion demands that we develop and support your strategic litigation and law reform efforts, to defend and expand our rights in the courts.
We see the weaponisation of the courts and judiciary in most countries around the world. We cannot stand idly by whilst our legal systems are turned against us.
This motion demands that we empower internationalism and lead by example in the United Nations system, challenging the nationalism and violence of the far right.
We are a critical part of the biggest democratic movement in the world – the international labour movement. So we have a responsibility to help rebuild our international institutions.
We gave the world the weekend. We gave the world pensions, maternity leave, holiday pay, health and safety, social security.
We now need to give the world the living wage, freedom from violence and harassment at work, the right to sanitation facilities for all workers, the right to a safe commute home from work.
We must ensure our children, and our children’s children enjoy these rights, remembering that we fought for them.
And that is why, brothers and sisters, we move this motion today.
