The aims of the 8th World Women’s Conference of the ICFTU are to:
- provide policy guidelines for the ICFTU, bearing in mind the holding of the
18th World Congress in 2004,
- develop concrete, innovative strategies to a) make trade unions relevant to
working women today; and b) enhance women’s key role in building and
strengthening trade unions
- promote exchanges of information and experience between women trade
unionists, and
- strengthen women’s solidarity both inside and outside the
union
The Conference theme is: ‘Unions for Women; Women for Unions”, with two sub-themes:
- “Unions for Women: Making Unions Work for Women”
- “Women for Unions: The Force of the Future”
The main background/working documents for the Conference are:
a) The Charter of the Rights of Working Women
b) The Global Unions’ Organising Campaign Kit: “Unions for Women; Women for Unions”
It will also be helpful to refer to the following documents, all of which will be available during the Conference (see also ICFTU Website for texts: www.icftu.org):
a) Changing the World Through Equality - the Trade Union Vision’ adopted by the 6th World Women’s Conference, The Hague, October 1994
b) The 17th ICFTU World Congress Statement: “End Discrimination – Equality for Women Now!”
c) The Conclusions and Recommendations of the 7th World Women’s Conference of the ICFTU (Rio de Janeiro, 18-21 May 1999)
d) Primer on the ICFTU Positive Action Programme for Women in Development Cooperation
e) Positive Action Programme for the Integration of Women into Trade Union Organisations
f) Policy on Violence against Women
g) Policy on Work and Family
h) Guidelines on Sexual Harassment at the Workplace
i.) Guidelines on Sexual Harassment in the Trade Unions
The Guide is made up of 23 Discussion Sheets (a few with appendices), each dealing with the issues to be debated in the workshops. The sheets contain facts and figures, case study(ies) and quotes from various documents and publications, as well as discussion points. Of necessity, many issues are inter-linked and where appropriate, cross-references are indicated. A glossary of acronyms is provided at the end. The Guide is by no means exhaustive and there will be issues which you will find missing. Please do not hesitate to bring these up during the Conference.
We hope this Guide will also be a useful resource document well beyond the Conference, for you and your union sisters and brothers.
We would like to express grateful appreciation to the members of the Women’s Committee and the GUFs for their assistance in providing facts and figures and case studies, and in the case of the PSI, also for preparing the papers on privatisation, GATS and pay equity. Special thanks are due to the ILO/GEMPRO with whom the ICFTU and the GUFs collaborated on the Resource Kit for Trade Unions: “Promoting Gender Equality” (which is extensively quoted in the Guide).
Conference procedures
As in previous Conferences, the participatory method will be used at this Conference, with two keynote speakers, the Hon. Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Sister Nancy Riche, immediate past Chair of the ICFTU Women’s Committee. The sub-themes will be introduced by panels with selected delegates from various regions participating.
There will be two group exercises (with 11 workshops held simultaneously), under the first and the second sub-theme. Each group will be assigned a topic; the relevant Discussion Sheets will be indicated. The group rapporteurs will make their summary reports to Plenary for adoption. The summary of the reports on the two sub-themes will form the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Conference. The Women’s Committee, at its meeting in September 2003, will put these in final form for endorsement by the Executive Board at the end of November and, thereafter, will be circulated to all participants, affiliates and GUFs, for follow-up action.
The Conference Conclusions and Recommendations will be our major input to the 18th World Congress in 2004.