Luc Triangle:“This May Day we must remember what trade unions have done for democracy in the past, and harness the collective power of trade unions to defend and rebuild democracy now and in the future.”Read the full article
Climate disruption is leading to the onset of health problems, such as ‘heat stress’ or skin and eye diseases, while certain extreme weather events are responsible for a large number of work-related deaths every year. In Brazil, workers in the least skilled jobs are often hardest [...]Read the full article
Therese Svanström:“In a globalised world, corporate operations extend across borders; therefore, trade union activities must do the same.”Read the full article
‘Feminist foreign policy’ is an evolving concept aimed at improving women’s rights around the world through diplomatic relations. Its scope can range from funding development projects aimed at fostering gender equality to increasing women’s representation in the diplomatic sphere and giving them a [...]Read the full article
“We know there is no future for this capitalist food system. It has to die but it is not yet dead. In this process, food sovereignty activists act as collective midwives that are giving birth to a new system.”Read the full article
Solar is the energy of choice in refugee camps around the world that are turning to clean energy, whether at the initiative of UN agencies, humanitarian groups or governments.Read the full article
One of the keys to moving towards a food system that is less dependent on fossil fuels and pesticides is farmer education and training. Challenging the prevailing narrative is part of the process: “Of all the monopolies in industrial agriculture, the most powerful is the monopoly of [...]Read the full article
Mandeep Tiwana:“Although most countries have embraced the ritual of elections, the quality of democracy on offer is poor. In short, many elections in 2024 will be less free and transparent than the winners want us to believe.”Read the full article
The global digital and energy transition is increasing the demand for minerals. At the same time, resistance against projects is rising, support networks are being woven and initiatives to guarantee the rights of communities and decent working conditions are being [...]Read the full article
Dijana Šobota:Workers who more positively assess their level of being informed about workers’ rights are more likely to state that their rights have not been violated, while a higher incidence of violations of rights was recorded among those respondents who felt that their level of being informed was [...]Read the full article
Ronald Janssen:“Strong wage formation institutions together with robust social dialogue allow workers to catch up with inflation by bargaining for higher wages and, more generally, to negotiate a fair sharing of the cost-of-living crisis. It is shocking to observe that in 2022 top CEOs benefitted from [...]Read the full article
“The question is: can the world ignore Africa? The fact that other regions don’t have youthful populations means that Africa has an opportunity to actually help address labour shortages elsewhere and the rest of the world will have Africa’s young people to go and contribute to development. But [...]Read the full article
Unions and many environmentalists want to see all waste workers – including waste pickers – in decent working conditions, while ensuring that upstream workers are not left behind.Read the full article
Giulia Massobrio:“Since 2018, the ITUC has been calling for a new social contract in line with SDG 8. This contract includes six demands that are crucial to achieving truly sustainable development: from rights-based and climate-friendly jobs to wage justice and greater democracy in global [...]Read the full article
Seven decades of exploitation by the world’s leading space agencies have left the Earth’s orbit cluttered with debris, which has been causing problems for the planet. These problems have been exacerbated by the private sector’s entry into the space race over the last five [...]Read the full article
Pamela Morinière:“Being recognised as an author should not be the exclusive privilege of creative writers, especially against a backdrop of fake news, where a journalist’s signature is a guarantee of quality and professionalism.”Read the full article
Chloé Maurel:“Under the 17 ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) proclaimed by the UN in 2015, goal 6 aims to ensure access to and the sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. But will these declarations remain a dead letter in a world where they have no binding force and the UN has no power to [...]Read the full article
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a landmark, post-Second World War commitment to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all people – turns 75 this year. Can the world recommit to this noble promise or will attempts to uphold the sacred principles of the Declaration eventually be [...]Read the full article
Acquiring new skills, enriching social relations and, above all, achieving a degree of financial independence: these are just some of the benefits that women around the world seek through access to decent employment.Read the full article
Against a backdrop of globalisation and fierce competition between economies, with automation, digitalisation and artificial intelligence for the masses moving ahead at full speed, which approach to education (without falling into dichotomies) is best suited to respond to these [...]Read the full article
In an environment of accelerating automation and digitalisation, will lifelong learning be the key to staying in our chosen job or profession? How should we address the challenge of informal work? What will happen to jobs impacted by the climate crisis? And what role will trade unions play in [...]Read the full article
How the Slow Food movement is helping local communities and smallholder farmers in Africa ensure food sovereignty and breakaway from neocolonial production systems.Read the full article
Christina Colclough:“Whilst the process of automation is nothing new, the extent and speed of it is. It has been estimated that over 300 million jobs worldwide will be severely affected by these systems.”Read the full article
Loredana Carta:“The ITUC Global Rights Index is now, more than ever, a powerful force to build a better world for working people. It has been used to force governments to improve workers’ right in return for international loans, trade unions have used the Index for targeted action to force legislative change [...]Read the full article
“The first five years of a child’s life is so important, because that’s when 80 per cent of the brain develops. The environment where they grew up, the type of human interaction and stimulations they have…can grow strong foundations for their wellbeing and future [...]Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:Global military spending has continued to rise for the eighth year in a row. Seen from a traditional state security perspective – which generally assumes that more weapons means more security – this could be interpreted as good news. But is [...]Read the full article
Ruwan Subasinghe:A human rights-based approach to climate action is imperative to ensure a just transition for workers and communities. In order to effectively mobilise resources to enable a transition to low-carbon climate resilient societies, just transition needs to be a recognised as a human [...]Read the full article
Christina Colclough:Across the world, workers are increasingly subjected to digital systems and technologies. Unless workers and their unions build the capacity to understand how these technologies work, and what causes the harms and otherwise negative impacts on workers, they will forever be one step [...]Read the full article
Daniel Kostzer:“The response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse are both powerful examples of the underlying logic of capitalism, that a bank can be bailed out in a matter of hours but during the Covid-19 pandemic it took most governments several months before deciding to intervene to [...]Read the full article
Abdeslam Marfouk:Despite the increase in absolute terms, the number of international migrants is still a very small fraction of the world population: 3.6 per cent in 2020, compared to 2.5 per cent in 1960. This means that 97 out of every 100 people in the world today still live in their country of [...]Read the full article
Job automation could affect the quality of work more than the quantity. The issue is not machines taking over our jobs but pushing us into poorer quality employment. The best way to avoid this is to invest in preventive training and to call on companies to act [...]Read the full article
Ira Rachmawati:Recruitment Advisor has been actively used as an organising tool by unions to reach out to migrant workers and build trust. In addition, unions that utilise the platform have been able to increase cooperation with other unions in origin or destination [...]Read the full article
Mass layoffs have hit large tech companies since the end of last year. Previously well-paid workers suddenly became the target of brutal firings. It is a move that might have been taken to silence workers, but it might just have the opposite [...]Read the full article
The guiding principle of the public library is that everyone deserves free and open access to our common cultural heritage. This places the institution at fundamental odds with capitalist consumer ideals. From New Delhi to Los Angeles, we visit seven ‘palaces for the [...]Read the full article
The growing popularity of artificial intelligence software, capable of generating images, sound and even text in a matter of seconds, is opening up a debate on technological transformation: are our education systems ready for a world where AI is [...]Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:“The issues of security and wellbeing are not antithetical but are the two basic pillars of peace, both within and beyond the borders of all states.”Read the full article
“It is a silent process, for which we have hardly any data, but we can see how investment funds are taking over not only land but also production. This is furthering the industrialisation of agriculture and livestock farming,” damaging ecosystems and overexploiting [...]Read the full article
For over 20 years, states have been trying to reach a new agreement on a treaty to protect the high seas. But finalising the text, called for by NGOs and environmentalists, is proving difficult, given the wealth of resources the deep sea holds for research and [...]Read the full article
The creative AI revolution has sparked fascination and fear in equal measure. Could AI be exploited to cut costs, to demand more work in less time, to make sectors such as design even more precarious or to automate the easiest [...]Read the full article
The use of solid fuels is damaging to health and the environment. Despite the availability of clean cooking solutions and technologies, the prospects for improvement are compromised by successive crises, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, and a lack of structural investment. In many countries, [...]Read the full article
Marga Zambrana:Experts and international organisations warn that only those who are able to quickly adapt to change through lifelong learning will survive.Read the full article
In recent decades schools around the world have become increasingly obsessed with grades, competitiveness and measurable and comparable results, while other important aspects of the education of our future citizens are being [...]Read the full article
Certified organic farming accounts for just 1.5 per cent of the world’s agricultural land, with some 72 million hectares managed by three million farmers in 187 countries.Read the full article
Like women, the elderly and people with mental health issues, the working poor and people with multiple jobs are also likely to sleep worse, wake up worse, make more mistakes and sustain more injuries.Read the full article
Alan McClay:“Success or failure with regards to the future of the world’s land and its ability to sustain life is one determining factor: soil health. The earth beneath our feet is so ubiquitous that it is easy to take it for granted, but it literally provides the building bricks of [...]Read the full article