Global solidarity to top agenda at Vancouver Congress

Improving how transport trade unionists work together across transport sectors and international borders, to contest the negative affects of globalisation, will top the agenda next month when around 1,000 transport trade unionists and advisers meet for the 40th Congress of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), in Vancouver, Canada.

Delegates and advisers from transport trade unions across the world will come together from 14 - 21 August to hammer out future ITF policy.

The meeting will be the 40th ITF Congress since the first one in London 104 years ago. For the last Congress in 1998, more than 1,000 delegates and advisers travelled to New Delhi, India, representing 294 trade unions from across the globe.

Motions scheduled for discussion in Vancouver include how transport unions can work with international partners, and with unions representing workers in other transport sectors, to contest the negative affects of globalisation in the transport industry, including job losses, poor safety standards and degraded transport networks.

Also up for debate is how the ITF and affiliate transport unions should react to the increasing power and domination of global economic bodies such as the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

"Because of deeper support and activity by our affiliates, the ITF is probably in a better state to defend the interests of transport workers around the world and face the challenges of globalisation than at any other time," said ITF General Secretary David Cockroft. "The ITF Congress in Vancouver must and will build on this new strength."

The congress will also discuss how to improve the role women play in transport trade unions, and how trade unions can challenge the particular problem women face in a male-dominated industry. More than 170 participants are to attend an ITF Women's Conference in Vancouver in the run up to Congress, with the theme: 'Unions and women's employment in the transport industry'.
British Columbia, the Canadian province of which Vancouver is the capital, has recently faced a number of attacks on workers' rights following the May election of the new Liberal government.
The new administration has introduced legislation stripping back worker's rights to unionise, and has faced industrial action from public sector workers, including transport workers, as a result.