UNI 1st World Congress
Sunday 9th September
Deutsch - English

All News:
Protection for the new workers of the new economy 09.09
Maj-Len elected 2nd UNI President 09.09
UNI Solidarity: Zimbabwe & Argentina 09.09
No racism here says youth 08.09
Call to end repression in Burma 08.09
Share power can re-shape globalisation 08.09
Union alliances key to countering multinationals 08.09
Annan and Riester back union rights 08.09
Workers rights endangered in Colombia 07.09
Impact of UNI’s launch 07.09
Congress gets down to organising, organising, organising 07.09
Long petition highlights imprisonments of trade unionists in Korea 07.09
Unions can stop merry-go-round says Frank 06.09
Congress call to free imprisoned trade unionists 06.09
People lose out in unstable new economy 06.09
‘Freedom Roll’ highlights human rights at UNI Congress 05.09
We are all UNI family 05.09
World needs UNI says Kurt 05.09
Millions paying price for unstable New Economy 05.09

Sunday 9th September News:
Protection for the new workers of the new economy
UNI Solidarity: Zimbabwe & Argentina
Maj-Len elected 2nd UNI President

Protection for the new workers of the new economy

UNI’s World Congress demanded new rights for the new workers of the changing, global economy.
And unions are being urged to adapt their structures to embrace them into membership, throwing away old definitions of what is a job and what is a worker with the aim of organising all who live by their labour in a fast changing world.
Teleworkers, workers in the young IT sector, atypical workers who often have no full time or even fixed contracts and creative workers are all to be targeted in a global programme.
"UNI is the right organisation in the right place at the right time," declared delegates. "It can be the ideal international instrument for helping new workers to organise and defend their new rights, some of which are yet to be identified and established.
"It will mean campaigning on a broader range of issues - including social benefits, tax, intellectual property rights and freedom of expression.
It will mean drawing a line between flexible working arrangements that suit individuals and exploitation - with a campaign to oppose so-called zero hour contracts (the new economy’s equivalent of the 19^th century dock gate queue for casual work with its "no call to work, no pay" system).
The provision of training and re-training is also seen as key for workers to keep up with technological change.

"Our challenge today is to adapt to changes and not try to maintain things as they were before," said Hubert Gatz of ver.di during the Congress debate. "We have to re-define ourselves. We have to target people with and without traditional jobs."
Supporting the on-line rights for on-line workers campaign, Delmiro Carriera, SBSI Portugal, said: "in the past we won the right to put up our posters – now we must obtain new rights to inform our members."
"We have to have dialogue with other organisations involved in the new economy," said Manuel da Silva of Sindetelco, Portugal.
Jean-Paul Bouchet, CFDT-Cadres, France, said: "whether we use the titles new or old economy what’s important is that workers adapt to changes in their working lives."
"Atypical working is becoming a problem for old jobs too," said Ferre Wyckmans of LBC-NVK, Belgium.
A call for technological support to help unions in the developing world tackle the issues of the new economy came from Naupress Kibiswa of Syncass, Democratic Republic of the Congo. "Our employers are connected to the Internet and are better equipped than we are," he said.
Yoshihiro Sataki, of Japan, told of huge amounts of overtime being worked in the broadcasting sector - with financial pressures affecting quality. "We have to protect the new workers," he said.

Calls for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth and greater pressure from European governments over human and trade unions rights abuses in the country emerged during the concluding session of UNI’s World Congress in Berlin.
Delegates approved a motion calling for the restoration of full democratic rights in Zimbabwe.
"The political breakdown of law and order in Zimbabwe and the persecution of minorities in the name of land grabbing by the Mugabe regime can best be described as ethnic cleansing in the making," Gift Chimanikire, of the Zimbabwe posts and telecoms union, told Congress.
"For every 10 resettled government supporters on each farm, 100 families - over 500 people - are being displaced with nowhere to go."
Trade unions are also under attack by the Mugabe regime, said Mr Chiminikire, who is a member of both the main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
Laws ban many public service workers from joining unions, union leaders are subject to attacks and harassment and Mr Chiminikire accused the government of trying to set up phoney unions to divide the workers.
Congress also gave its backing to unions in Argentina fighting to preserve social conditions in the midst of austerity following an attack on the peso currency.
Congress rejected cuts in salaries of public employees and pensioners and expressed its solidarity with the people and workers movement in Argentine.

For further information please contact:
Noel Howell, UNI Press Officer, 0041 79 446 2703 (mobile)

Maj-Len elected 2^nd UNI President

Maj-Len Remahl, President for 2001-2003 Download her CV here!

Joe Hansen, President for 2003-2005

UNI has elected Maj-Len Remahl of Finland to be its second president who takes over from Kurt van Haaren from Verdi (ex-DPG) for the period 2001-2003.
Born in Vassa she is President of the 200,000-member services union in Finland - PAM - and has been an active supporter of cooperation between unions in the Nordic countries.
"It’s impossible to stop globalisation," she told delegates in her acceptance speech.
"Here at Congress we have made many important decisions on how to give globalisation a more human face and to create more human societies."
"If we live in the new or the old economy the same old rules apply – we need to organise and recruit and to develop trade unions."
She stressed the importance of helping women and attracting young people to unions.
"We have a change in generations and it’s important to keep our strength by involving young people and making room for them."
Elected as the third president for the years 2003 until UNI’s next Congress in the USA in 2005 was Joe Hansen, of America.
A former meatcutter, he is Secretary Treasurer of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union of the United States and Canada. In a keynote speech this week he urged unions to use the shareholder power of workers’ pension funds to force greater responsibility on corporations and is active in the USA to improve immigration rights for undocumented workers.
Joe extended an invitation to Congress to find a home in the United States in 2005 - probably in his home town of Chicago.
"We will make plans to be gracious hosts," he said.
"It has been a tremendously important Congress," Philip Jennings, UNI’s re-elected General Secretary told the media.
"Globalisation needs a human face and unions have to work more closely together at an international level to influence the multinationals who increasingly dominate our lives."
"We are part of a rebirth of trade unions that will reach out to the new workers, many of whom are self-employed or work on atypical contracts."