Asia-Pacific trade unions unify in new regional organisation

A new regional trade union organisation for Asia and the Pacific has been created, with the founding congress of the ITUC Asian Pacific (ITUC-AP) taking place in Bangalooru, India, on 5 and 6 September. The congress of the new organisation registered a membership of some 18.6 million, with 48 affiliates from 29 countries and territories in the region. ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder hails the foundation as “an historic step” which will give working people throughout the region even stronger and more effective representation, in a part of the world where many economies are growing rapidly, but millions of people are being left behind.

The unification in Asia-Pacific creates the first of the three regional organisations of the ITUC, which founded last November in Vienna. The founding congress was preceded by dissolution congresses of the APRO and the BATU, the regional organisations of the former ICFTU and WCL respectively.
Unification processes of the regional trade union movements in Africa and in the Americas are underway, and are expected to be concluded in the coming months.

The ITUC-AP Congress elected G Rajasekaran (Malaysia), as its President, Noriyuki Suzuki (Japan) as General Secretary, and Necie Lucero (Philippines) as Deputy General Secretary. Along with the adoption of the ITUC-AP Constitution and Action Programme, Resolutions were adopted on Burma, where a new wave of repression by the military regime is taking place, and on Israel/Palestine, calling for peace and an end to the violence. The Congress also elected the ITUC-AP General Council and Executive Bureau, which will serve as the governing bodies of the organisation between congresses.

APEC must address the ugly faces of globalisation

Meeting for the 13th Asia Pacific Labour Network meeting, union leaders from the region sent a strong message to the upcoming APEC Leaders summit to be held from 7 to 9 September in Sidney, Australia. Rather than continuing to narrowly focus on trade and investment liberalisation, APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation) must broaden its scope to deal with the economic and social realities of the majority of the people of the region. The Asia Pacific is on the brink of a jobs crisis, with lack of decent work opportunities as more people toil in the informal economy, inequality rises, social standards plummet, and millions of people leave their countries to seek a basic living. Yet APEC is addressing none of this, a trade union statement to the APEC meeting complains.

Unions believe that the APEC leaders must acknowledge the social dimensions within their agenda, and listen to the voice of workers and other citizens. While trade and finance ministers meet on a yearly basis, ministers responsible for labour, social protection and education have not met since 2001. The union leaders of the Asia Pacific have presented APEC with 11 concrete recommendations on how to make the cooperation broader and more relevant. The question now is whether they are willing to listen.

Students' protests in Sidney


"People trafficking, the sex trade and the exploitation and abuse of workers, especially migrant workers, are the ugly faces of globalisation. These are important issues and should not be left off the APEC agenda", said Sharan Burrow, President of both the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). According to trade unions, today 1.36 million people in the Asia Pacific region are victims of trafficking across borders for sexual or economic exploitation, with children accounting for up to 50 % of these victims.