Il Congresso dell’ITUC, Federazione internazionale dei sindacati, che si è svolto a Melbourne in Australia dal 17 al 22 novembre 2022 con oltre mille delegati da 120 paesi ha approvato una risoluzione che auspica un negoziato di pace in Ucraina sotto l’egida dell’Onu.
Agenda item 5(b)(i) Emergency Resolutions
5CO/E/5(b)(i)
International Trade Union Confederation
5th WORLD CONGRESS
Melbourne, Australia, 17 – 22 November 2022
Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Peace, Democracy and Rights
Congress condemns Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine with the support of the regime in Belarus, with tens of thousands including many civilians killed or maimed and massive destruction of crucial infrastructure. Congress demands an immediate end to Russia’s aggression with a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine. Congress calls for negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations for a just and lasting peace.
Attacks on critical infrastructure have included deliberate targeting of crucial utilities, including energy. This constitutes a war crime, along with the torture and massacre of civilians, including women and children, since the invasion began. Dozens of electricity plants have been destroyed or damaged, leaving entire regions without power as temperatures plummet, necessitating evacuations of civilians, adding to millions of displaced people, and destroying thousands of jobs directly and indirectly. Shelling of nuclear facilities has risked catastrophic incidents.
Russia’s invasion has brought war to yet another region as conflicts elsewhere, in Syria, Tigray, Yemen and many other countries have continued to destroy human lives. It has had direct consequences across the world with energy prices skyrocketing and vital exports of fertilizer, grain and other commodities severely disrupted, throwing hundreds of millions of people into poverty and for many, starvation, including in other places beset by conflict. It has added millions more people to the tens of millions of refugees and internally displaced persons who had already fled conflict, environmental destruction or other causes around the world.
On top of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, many more have been maimed or succumbed to diseases caused by war in recent years, with devastating consequences.
Congress denounces all threats to use nuclear weapons and demands that all countries renounce weapons of mass destruction, and urgently ratify and implement the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Congress expresses the deepest concern at the repression perpetrated by the Lukashenko regime against the people of Belarus and the free and independent trade union movement of the country, including the arrests of the leadership of the BKDP, baseless accusations of high treason against, and punishment of, worker leaders.
Congress extends its solidarity to the BKDP and all those arrested, prosecuted, jailed and displaced. It is vital that the BKDP remain in the ranks of the ITUC and that the international trade union movement maintain and increase pressure for the release of imprisoned trade unionists. The ITUC welcomes the application of Article 33 of the ILO Constitution concerning Belarus and demands that the government implement in full all ILO recommendations on Belarus and overturn the decision of the Supreme Court to dissolve the BKDP affiliates – the Belarusian Independent trade union (BNP), the Free trade union of metal workers (SPM), Belarusian trade union of radio-electronic industry (REP) and Free trade union of
5CO/E/5(b)(i)
Belarus (SPB). All charges against leaders must be withdrawn and members of the BKDP and its affiliates must be released.
With the introduction of the National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong in 2020, the governments of Hong Kong and China have suppressed civil society organisations in Hong Kong. The right to freedom of association has been attacked and many prominent union leaders have been imprisoned. The independent trade union movement in Hong Kong is facing an existential threat. More than 60 trade unions have been forcibly dissolved and several trade union leaders imprisoned for participating in peaceful assemblies. We demand that they be released and all charges dropped.
We stand in solidarity with the independent trade union movement in Hong Kong and urge all affiliates to engage in the campaign to support it.
Congress rejects the manipulation of legal systems to persecute trade unionists and other defenders of democracy and rights.
Congress further expresses grave concerns over the persistent suppression on workers’ rights and trade union rights in China and calls on the Chinese Government to respect the right to strike, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. The practice of forced labour, including in Xinjiang, must end.
Congress reaffirms the international trade union movement’s deep and abiding commitment to peace and democracy, and repudiates all those who seek to incite or justify armed conflict.
Congress denounces the subjugation of entire peoples to military dictatorship in Myanmar and elsewhere, and commits to continue and strengthen support for the CTUM, including through international action against companies that profit from doing business with the murderous regime.
Congress recalls its special solidarity message to the trade unions and people of Iran, and further calls for an end to misogynistic and dictatorial rule in Afghanistan.
Congress:
- Reiterates the ITUC’s Founding Declaration of Principles, with its commitments to peace and the rights of all peoples to self-determination;
- Expresses its solidarity and sympathy with all those who have lost family, friends or colleagues to armed conflict, and condemns the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and elsewhere. Congress calls for full respect of international law without exception;
- Welcomes the overwhelming solidarity and support from neighbouring and other countries for the people of Ukraine, including the many solidarity projects run by trade unions inside and outside the country, with generous support from unions and the public;
- Calls for similar levels of international solidarity for refugees from Syria and other countries beset by armed conflict;
- Condemns the military coup in Myanmar and the regime’s brutal crackdown on the people of Myanmar and their trade unions, and urgently calls on governments to implement comprehensive economic sanctions as well as recognise Myanmar’s National Unity Government;
- Demands that the National Security Law in Hong Kong be revoked, the suppression of trade unions and other civil society organisations cease, all imprisoned trade unionists and democracy advocates be released, and that Hong Kong’s international labour and other human rights obligations be respected in full;
2 Calls for a successful conclusion to the negotiations concerning Tigray;
- Insists that the perpetrators of conflict must pay for reconstruction of economies and societies, and stresses the importance of ILO Recommendation 205: Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience;
- Calls on governments to repudiate all illegitimate regimes, military or other, and demands that companies that do business with them be sanctioned;
- Acknowledges the support of affiliates and Global Union Federations for the ITUC Countries at Risk programme, and pledges to continue and reinforce it;
- Demands urgent, multilateral and global action to stop the waste of vital resources for military spending, especially nuclear weapons, and the allocation of these resources to socially, environmentally and economically useful purposes with a just conversion to non-military uses of equipment and skills;
- Welcomes the 2022 Common Security Report of the Olof Palme Centre, International Peace Bureau and the ITUC with its core recommendations including the convening of UN Peace Conferences;
- Declares that the realisation of the New Social Contract is essential to ensuring and sustaining peace;
- Calls for respect by all countries for the role and authority of the United Nations, the revitalisation of its role in securing and maintaining peace and ending conflicts, through all available means, and recalls the need for multilateral frameworks, dialogue and negotiation to build and sustain common security;
- Reiterates that refugees are welcome and insists on full respect for refugees’ human rights;
- Insists that those guilty of war crimes be brought to justice; and,
- Calls for rapid and universal ratification and full implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty, the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
