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The World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is taking place in Vancouver, Canada, in June this year. COSATU is actively participating in the processes leading up to it, in line with its programme of seeking to build and transform the global trade union movement into a militant and fighting weapon of workers and the poor all over the world.

This evening a 5-person delegation from COSATU, led by the President and the General Secretary, is leaving for Lome, Togo, to attend a Preparatory Conference of ITUC-Africa in pursuit of this important mission of the federation. COSATU has placed the issue of African workers and the issues affecting the people of our continent firmly on the global agenda and will continue to do so in a world filled with afro-pessimism, double standards and tolerance for human rights abuses of our people.

The key issues that have always been key to our approach on the global stage, include:
• Transformation of the world economic order to serve workers and the poor, with the transformation of global governance and multilateral institutions at the core

• Building instruments of global working class struggle, including the World Social Forum and the global trade union movement into real agents of global social change and a better world

• Firmly placing the issues of the world's poorest and working class, particularly in Africa, at the centre of the global agenda for justice and human dignity

• Raising the issues of the environment and how capitalism has destroyed the ecology in pursuit of profit, thus requiring a new system entirely based on a new production and value system

• Locating the transformation process currently underway in our country as part of a broader effort for a new global system. Issues affecting workers and the poor on the continent will be prioritised, such as:
o Endemic corruption, global patronage and corporate plunder of our natural resources

o Human rights abuses and lack of democracy in many parts of our continent, including the problem of military dictatorships. The intensification of global working class solidarity remains primary

o Grinding poverty, underdevelopment and the net transfer of our natural resources to the industrialised countries of the north. Fair and just trade is critical to the struggle for a new and just economic order

o Women and children abuse, as well as their displacement in many parts of the continent and the world as refugees and victims of human trafficking

o Economic development and industrialisation through the beneficiation of our natural endowment for the massive creation of jobs on the continent and the value-addition of our natural resources

The African trade union movement is central to all our engagements and a key player in all these processes, together with all our sister unions, particularly from the south, who are also victimised by the unjust global system.

This high-profile participation of COSATU in this important African trade union Forum confirms the high premium placed by the federation in this regard.