Good afternoon. It's wonderful to be here with you all today. On behalf of the 11.5 million working women and men of the AFL-CIO and our community affiliate Working America, I want to thank you all for the work you do on behalf of working people every day.
This ITUC Congress takes place at an important moment in our movement's history. We meet 30 months into the most serious economic crisis the global economy has faced since the Great Depression.
The ITUC is the world leader in voicing workers' outrage at the destructive agenda led by the rich that has devastated so many lives. It compels us to demand of our governments and multilateral institutions a new strategy for the global economy—one that puts the needs of working people first and makes financial institutions pay for their greed, one that addresses the entrenched inequalities that have been worsened by the current crisis. We want a global governance system that is just, one that promotes the creation of decent work—which is still out of reach for the vast majority of the world's workers. In Mexico, mineworkers who try to improve health and safety violations and exercise their right to strike—like so many other workers worldwide—are met by violence and repression.
As a movement, we must put the right to organize and bargain collectively at the top of our goals for our future. Collective bargaining is a powerful mechanism for rebalancing the power relationship between workers and employers and addressing inequality. These basic rights must be seen not as an obstacle, but as a solution to the crisis.
So how are we going to achieve a new global economic order, one that puts the needs and rights of workers front and center? We do it by strengthening our unity and that of working people around the globe. We do it by daring to try new strategies, ones that we may have not tried in the past. Most importantly, we need to establish the ITUC as the leading voice for working people worldwide and as the vehicle for developing new alternatives for a more just social and economic system.
We understand that this economic crisis has created even greater challenges for our global movement. Our membership has declined worldwide—forcing us to do more with significantly less. We need to be more strategic. We must dedicate our resources towards helping new members organize and making our unions work for all workers. We must commit to bringing youth, women and migrants from all different sectors into our movement. We cannot do that without prioritizing resources for an effective organizing agenda.
We need to embrace a new culture of organizing that allows us to reach and represent new members as never before, including in the informal economy, the largest workforce in the world. The majority of the world's workers have had no experience with unions and do not even know how building workers' power can provide a real solution to the exploitation they experience each day. We need to strengthen a culture of organizing that supports independent and democratic trade unions, as they are the only legitimate representatives of workers anywhere.
Our organizing campaigns must be accompanied by effective public campaigns. We must target governments and corporations that flagrantly violate fundamental labor rights and develop effective, coordinated strategic campaigns that help workers organize. Our efforts must be coordinated by strengthening the Council of Global Unions, which can help us ensure ongoing strategic planning and concentrated coordination, particularly with the Global Union Federations.
By strengthening our global trade union movement, we can recover from the crisis and rebalance inequities in our financial system so that workers can rebuild their futures.
I want to thank each and every one of you for your commitment to a strong global trade union movement and for your lifelong belief that together, we can create a movement where all workers can realize their dreams. I know we can do it. I look forward to working together to make it happen.
