After 20 months of virtual meetings, the European Trade Union Confederation which represents the interest of over 45 million workers across 39 countries, gathers mostly in person this week in Lisbon.
ICTU representative on the ETUC Executive Owen Reidy is attending the conference and reports back.
It is great to be in Lisbon but also great to engage in a largely in person conference with all the necessary health and safety safeguards. I am attending and participating in the conference on behalf of the ICTU sitting on the ETUC Executive.
The conference was addressed by the President of Portugal, the Mayor of Lisbon as well as the Portuguese Minister for Labour, who has a very close relationship with the Portuguese trade union movement.
The conference also opted for some constitutional changes, the most significant being ensuring that young workers play a more central role in the ETUC. This is essential. If we wish to represent the workers of the here and now but also of the future, we must include them in our collective leadership.
There are a number of debates over the few days but the one that caught my eye and which I intend to participate in is the one entitled, “The power of persuasion and the persuasion of power, how we ensure the relevance of the European trade union movement.” I remember first hearing that phrase in a trade union context from Andy Stern, the former leader of the SEIU in the US.
We need a movement that is vibrant and strong and has the capacity to engage with stakeholders, governments and employers, that can persuade all, of the important and relevant voice of organised labour. But we need to have the capacity organisationally to use our collective power with those employers who refuse to engage with workers and deny workers their rights to a union and to organise.
Workers and unions must be prepared for the future opportunities as there are many challenges as we emerge from the pandemic but also potential huge opportunities for our movement.
