Decisions of the 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference, November 1-2, 2022
The 14th IUF/Asia Pacific Regional Conference adopted 20 Decisions that define the priorities, policies and activities of the Regional Organization for 2022-2026.
Below are the List of Decisions. For more information on the background and detailed activities under each Decision, please contact the Regional Secretariat.
The List of Decisions are also available in Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Khmer, Myanmar, Nepali, Thai and Urdu.
DECISION NO.1 POSTPONEMENT OF THE 14th REGIONAL CONFERENCE
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference reaffirms the decision of the Regional Committee to postpone the 14th Regional Conference from October 2021 to November 2022, and to hold the 15th Regional Conference in 2026.
COMMITMENT
- We are committed to ensuring that all affiliates can participate in the Regional Conference as the democratic mechanism of our Regional Organization. As such we postponed the Regional Conference to 2022, conducted national and sub-regional consultations over the past 18 months. We convene the hybrid conference so that it maximizes the participation of affiliates in city and national meetings and minimizes as much as possible the disadvantages faced by affiliates lacking access to the necessary technology and stable internet connections.
DECISION NO.2 REGIONAL CONFERENCE CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference endorses the proposal of the 52nd IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Committee Meeting held on August 31, 2022, on the composition of the Credentials Committee.
DECISION NO.3 RECOGNITION OF VOTING RIGHTS OF UNIONS AFFILIATED IN 2022
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference endorses the proposal to grant voting rights to unions that affiliated to IUF in 2022 and paid their 2022 affiliation fees.
DECISION NO.4 YOUTH REPRESENTATION IN THE REGIONAL COMMITTEE
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference endorses the proposal of the 49th Regional Committee Meeting on July 31, 2019, to amend the Statutes of the IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Organization to strengthen youth representation. This involves creating a titular position for Youth in the Regional Committee.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to organize young workers, give priority to youth issues, support greater involvement of young workers in the union and ensure youth are represented in the leadership of our unions. As part of this commitment, we will ensure youth representation in the leadership of the IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Organization.
DECISION NO.5 THE REGIONAL SOLIDARITY FUND [RSF]
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference welcomes the renaming of the Regional Activities Fund [RAF] as the Regional Solidarity Fund [RSF] and recognizes it as a vital resource for workers and their unions facing repression by employers and governments. It is a critical source of financial strength for workers organizing new independent and democratic trade unions in the IUF sectors and must continue.
DECISION NO.6 WOMEN, UNIONS AND POWER
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference adopts the report of the 3rd IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Women’s Conference held on 14th August 2022, under the theme “Women’s Power Moving Unions Forward” and endorses the 5 resolutions passed by the Regional Women’s Conference:
Resolution No. 1: Women, Unions and Power Initiative [2022 -2026]
Resolution No. 2: More Women in Unions and Leadership [2022 -2026]
Resolution No. 3: More women in better paid, skilled, secure jobs [2022 -2026]
Resolution No. 4: Greater role of women in informal sector in decision making and policy interventions [2022-2026]
Resolution No. 5: Ending Harassment and Violence Against Women [2022 -2026]
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to organize more women in unions in all IUF sectors and ensure more women are in the leadership of our unions. This is essential to our union power.
- We are committed to stopping discrimination, removing barriers that prevent women securing better paid, skilled and secure jobs, and promoting gender equality and women workers’ rights.
- Our commitment is to ensure a safe and secure workplace, free from all forms of sexual harassment and violence against women.
- We are committed to supporting women engaged in the informal sector to effectively access decision-making and policy intervention.
- Our commitment is to integrate the Women, Unions & Power agenda into all of our union policies, programs and activities.
DECISION NO.7 YOUTH IN UNIONS – BUILDING UNION POWER FOR THE FUTURE
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference adopts the report of the 2nd IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Youth Conference held on 7th August 2022, under the theme “Youth in Unions – Building Union Power for the Future of Work” and endorses the 4 resolutions passed by the Regional Youth Conference:
Resolution No.1: Organizing more youth and developing youth leadership [2022 -2026]
Resolution No.2: New Forms of Organizing for Atypical Work [2022 -2026]
Resolution No.3: Climate Action, Just Transition & Sustainable Jobs [2022 -2026]
Resolution No.4: Social Protection, Dignity & Social Justice [2022 -2026]
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to ensure active involvement of all affiliates in organizing more youth and developing youth leadership. Young workers active in our unions and union leadership is vital to our union power.
- We are committed to defending democracy and democratic rights and the role of youth in it.
- Our commitment is to ensure youth have access to social protection in all IUF sectors.
- Our commitment is to ensure youth have meaningful, safe and secure work with decent wages, and that quality apprenticeships are an important part of achieving this.
- We are committed to taking action on the climate crisis, and at the same time will give extensive support for youth in our unions, as this crisis will have a disproportionate impact on the health, livelihood, jobs, food security and income of youth.
DECISION NO.8 POST-PANDEMIC REBUILDING, REORGANIZING & RECOVERY
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference recognizes that 2022-2026 is a crucial period of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis. It is necessary to focus on reorganizing and rebuilding our unions to increase our membership, thereby increasing our collective bargaining power in the workplace, our industrial power across industries, and our union power in society.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to support unions still recovering from the economic and social impact of the pandemic and to help build greater resilience and strength among our members over the next four years. This involves the recovery of membership and regaining financial strength, as well as organizing new membership.
- The pandemic exposed the weaknesses, vulnerability, and unfairness of the unjust and inequitable economic systems in which we work and live. We are committed to using our industrial power as unions at local, national, and regional level to ensure that all workers benefit from a just, equitable and sustainable recovery in each industry and sector.
- We must also ensure that we build the organizational resilience and support for members to face the continued challenges of the COVID-19 era, and to prepare for future pandemics.
DECISION NO.9 FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION, ADVANCING WORKERS’ HUMAN RIGHTS
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference declares that the fundamental task of the Regional Organization is to defend and advance workers’ rights throughout the IUF sectors. Central to this is the right to freedom of association as a fundamental right that is the basis for union power and enables workers to exercise all of their other human rights.
COMMITMENT
- We are committed to ensuring that all workers in the IUF sectors can exercise their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining in all countries and territories in the region as is guaranteed by ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98, and for agricultural and rural workers under ILO Convention Nos 11 and 141. This means that all workers can form or join unions freely without interference or intimidation by employers, governments, or security forces, and without discrimination.
- Unions must be allowed to freely undertake all the activities needed to defend and advance the interests of workers. When unions cannot fulfill their purpose of defending and advancing the rights and interests of workers, then it must be recognized as a violation of freedom of association as defined by ILO Convention No.87. We must take action to end any violations and restore this right.
- We are committed to recognizing that the victimization or unfair termination of trade union leaders and activists is a serious violation of the fundamental right to freedom of association and a threat to the existence of our unions. We must respond accordingly and be relentless in our fight for reinstatement.
- Our commitment is to use the union power we achieve through freedom of association and collective bargaining rights to eliminate child labour, forced labour and trafficking in the IUF sectors.
DECISION NO.10 DEFENDING DEMOCRACY, PROMOTING PEACE
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference calls on all affiliates throughout the region to strengthen our fight to defend democracy and to promote peace. We must escalate our fight to restore democracy, democratic rights and freedoms; resist dictatorship and authoritarianism; oppose militarism and war; and demand peace. Promoting peace also means that as trade unions we must fight against all forms of violence, intolerance and hatred based on race, ethnicity, language, social origin, descent, gender, age, or religion. Such hatred divides working people, weakening our power to achieve social and economic justice, and diminishing our human dignity.
COMMITMENT
- We are committed to using our union power to defend democracy and democratic rights in all our countries and to oppose any threat of a return to authoritarianism.
- Our commitment is to undertake effective, coordinated international union solidarity actions to end dictatorship and restore democracy and democratic rights.
- Independent, democratic trade unions are a fundamental democratic force in society and are necessary to ensure that democracy works for workers.
- Our commitment is to use our union power to fight against grand corruption that weakens democracy and undermines our ability to exercise our human rights and freedoms.
- We are committed to opposing war and military conflict and will use our international solidarity and union power to promote peace. We understand that women and children face the most brutal violence and suffering in the face of militarism, military conflict and war.
- We recognize that peace needs the economic and social justice we are fighting for, and that economic and social justice needs peace.
- We are committed to opposing all forms of communal violence, intolerance, and hatred and to ensure peace and respect in our workplaces, communities and society.
- Our commitment is to free ourselves from the vestiges of colonialism and a colonial mentality, to eradicate the racism and ethnicism used to maintain colonial power, and to educate our members in the workplace and in the community.
- We will as unions strive to protect and respect the rights of indigenous/first nation peoples, migrant workers, and ethnic and religious minorities, with the decency, compassion, respect, and solidarity that are the fundamental values of our trade union movement.
DECISION NO.11 FOOD SECURITY AND THE RIGHT TO FOOD AND NUTRITION
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference reaffirms the important role of trade unions in all the IUF sectors to promote food security, overcome the challenges of food insecurity and ensure that all people enjoy the universal human right to food and nutrition.
COMMITMENT
- We are committed to overcoming the injustice and inequality that causes more than 828 million people to live in hunger, of which more than 345 million people face extreme food insecurity.
- We recognize important role of small and marginal farmers, fisherfolk and artisanal fishers – especially women – in ensuring food security and the right to food and nutrition. Therefore, by organizing and defending the rights of small and marginal farmers, fisherfolk and artisanal fishers we can achieve food security and the right to food and nutrition for all.
- We recognize the tremendous impact that the climate crisis, war and military conflict have on food security and the right to food and nutrition. We are committed to ensuring that securing the right to food is a key objective in our work on the climate crisis, defending democracy and promoting peace.
- We remain committed to preventing bilateral and multilateral free trade regimes and corporate trade deals from undermining food security and the right to food and nutrition.
- Our commitment is to promote sustainable food and agricultural systems that are safe, healthy, and socially and environmentally sustainable.
DECISION NO.12 THE CLIMATE CRISIS & CLIMATE JUSTICE
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference recognizes the severity of the climate crisis and calls for greater action by affiliates to support the reduction of carbon emissions in the IUF sectors and to develop policies and strategies for the equitable and fair transition to clean energy and zero carbon. Recognizing the impact of climate change on food security, rising sea levels, and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, we will use our union power to protect the health, livelihoods and well-being of our members, their families and their communities. This needs climate resilience and climate justice.
COMMITMENT
- We are committed to just transitions in the context of climate justice for workers. This means using our union power to ensure that the mitigation and adaptation policies of employers, industries and governments contribute to greater economic and social justice, and do not deepen inequality and injustice.
- Our commitment is to support transitions to clean energy and zero carbon emissions in all the IUF sectors. By using our union power to shape these transitions, we will protect workers’ jobs, health and livelihoods, while ensuring the training, social protection and support needed to undergo these changes.
- We are committed to protecting the health and livelihoods of workers in the IUF sectors most seriously affected by the climate crisis, including those facing displacement, food insecurity, loss of sources of livelihood [crops, fish] and severe health effects.
- Our commitment is to use our union power for the kinds of urgent, effective action needed in the workplace, communities, industries and sectors, and at national and regional level to develop resilience, create new possibilities, and restore hope. This is critical to our ability to address the growing climate anxiety experienced by workers, especially youth.
DECISION NO.13 REORGANIZING THE HRCT SECTOR INTO TWO SECTORS
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference agrees that the existing Hotel, Restaurants, Catering and Tourism [HRCT] Sector will be divided into two sectors: Hotel & Tourism [H&T] Sector and the Food Services [FS] Sector.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to build union strength across the H&T Sector to ensure the environmentally and socially sustainable recovery of the tourism industry based on good jobs, safe work, and decent wages.
- Our commitment is to build union strength across the FS Sector to ensure that food service jobs are good, safe jobs that provide decent incomes for workers and their families.
DECISION NO.14 REBUILDING UNION POWER IN THE HOTEL & TOURISM SECTOR
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference supports the rebuilding of union power through the recovery and expansion of union membership and greater collective bargaining power to ensure secure jobs, safe work, and better wages throughout the hotel & tourism [H&T] sector, including small and medium hotels and tourism operations.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to bring together unions of hotel workers and tourism industry workers in a revitalized and more focused H&T Sector with better regional coordination.
- Our commitment is to build union strength across the H&T Sector to ensure the environmentally and socially sustainable recovery of the tourism industry based on good jobs, safe work, and decent wages.
- We recognize the prevailing limitations in the ability to enforce International Framework Agreements and global recognition by international hotel chains/groups and the erosion of the leverage needed to support workers in the Asia-Pacific to access their fundamental right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. We must rebuild our union power.
- Our commitment is to continue to organize new unions and build union strength throughout the H&T Sector in all hotels, resorts, and tourism operations, and to effectively defend the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining based on national union power and regional coordination.
- Our commitment is to give greater attention to the distinct challenges faced by workers in leisure hotels and resorts; business hotels; integrated casino resorts; and workers in small and medium scale hotels. In the tourism industry, greater attention will be given to the needs of workers in adventure tourism; agro-tourism; ecological tourism; and cultural heritage site workers.
DECISION NO.15 ORGANIZING POWER IN THE FOOD SERVICES SECTOR
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference approves the establishment of the Food Services [FS] Sector in the region as necessary to provide more effective support for members in restaurants, fast food, coffee shops, catering, and food delivery services, and to increase new membership in this sector in 2022-2026.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to bring together workers in restaurants, fast food, coffee shops, catering, and food delivery services in the new FS Sector to build union strength.
- Using the recognition of food services workers as “essential workers” in the pandemic, we are committed to organizing, collective bargaining and campaigning for better wages and conditions that recognize the value of the work of FS workers.
- Our commitment is to give greater attention to the rights and well-being of part-time workers in the FS Sector, especially youth.
- Our commitment is to recognize that in the FS Sector many of those designated as managers, especially store managers and assistant managers, are in fact workers and deserve the same rights, including the right to organize and bargain collectively.
- We are committed to new organizing initiatives to build unions of digital platform food delivery riders and develop their collective bargaining power vis-à-vis industry associations, local authorities and/or employers. We will fight to ensure their rights as workers.
- Our commitment is to build union strength across the FS Sector to ensure that food service jobs are good, safe jobs that provide decent incomes for workers and their families now and in the future.
DECISION NO.16 RENEWING UNION POWER IN THE FOOD & BEVERAGE SECTOR
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference supports the renewal of union power in the Food & Beverage Sector by becoming better organized in transnational companies, local companies, and small and medium enterprises and building the collective bargaining power needed to ensure secure jobs, safe workplaces with fair wages and benefits.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to revitalize the power of the food and beverage unions in the region through organizing, campaigns and education and training, and to develop better coordination at national and regional level.
- Our commitment is to strengthen the involvement of unions in the region in the Food Processing Division, Meat Division, Dairy Division and Brewery Division and to ensure the Divisions are more effective in providing the support unions need. We must build strength across these industries.
- Our commitment is to ensure we build union strength across transnational food and beverage companies and their supply chains to ensure all workers can exercise their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, with secure jobs, safe work, and better wages. We are committed to rebuilding the union power needed to enforce international agreements and ensure global recognition benefit workers.
- We are committed to organizing workers in food logistics and supply chains to build union strength and win secure, safe jobs with better wages.
DECISION NO.17 BUILDING UNION POWER IN FISHERIES, FARMS & PLANTATIONS
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference supports building union power in fisheries, farms and plantations to improve the livelihoods, incomes and health of waged workers, sharecroppers, small and marginal farmers, informal sector workers, home-based workers, fisherfolk, artisanal fishers, and workers employed in rural and agricultural cooperatives.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to support all workers engaged in agriculture and fisheries, in both the formal and informal sectors, to form and join unions freely and through independent, democratic unions transform their lives and rebuild their communities.
- Our commitment is to ensure that all workers in agriculture and fisheries, especially women workers, have access to social protection, government income assistance and community-based employment schemes to ensure stable incomes and livelihoods and be free from debt.
- Our commitment is to protect the health and safety of agricultural and fisheries workers and their communities by stopping the use of hazardous chemicals and disposal of toxic waste, ending piece-rate wage systems that force workers to work in unsafe conditions, and to reduce exposure to zoonotic diseases and antimicrobial resistance [AMR].
- We are committed to organizing workers in farms, plantations and fisheries to build the union power we need to create the socially and environmentally sustainable food and agricultural systems needed to ensure food security and the right to food and nutrition for all.
DECISION NO.18 NEW TECHNOLOGIES, DIGITALIZATION AND AUTOMATION
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference recognizes the need to use new technologies and digitalization in ways that increase union power and reach. We must use our union power to defend the quality of jobs, employment, human skills and experience, and the privacy, safety, health, and mental well-being of workers in the IUF sectors against the negative impact of certain kinds of new technologies, digitalization and automation.
COMMITMENT
- Our commitment is to utilize new technologies and digitalization in growing our membership, expanding our reach, building union power and improving the lives of our members.
- At the same time, we are committed to ensuring these new technologies and digitalization are ethical, equitable, environmentally sustainable, and free from all forms of discrimination.
- We are committed to equitable and fair access to new technologies and digitalization globally, as an opportunity to enhance freedom of speech and democracy, while at the same time oppose surveillance and data gathering used to exploit, oppress and control working people.
- Our commitment is to use our union power to support new technologies, digitalization and automation in the workplace that makes work safer, more skilled, more socially productive and more meaningful.
- We will also use our union power to oppose new technologies, digitalization and automation that replace jobs, create more precarious/insecure jobs, increase the stress and intensity of work, disempower workers in decision-making, and worsen gender equality and the rights of women.
DECISION NO.19 EDUCATION & TRAINING FOR POWER TO CHANGE
DECISION
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference recognizes that the successful implementation of the Priorities, Policies and Activities 2022-2026 agreed by this Conference requires skilled, structured education and training programs designed to meet the needs of unions. This education and training must increase the capacity of unions and enhance our power to bring change in our workplaces, industries, communities and in society.
COMMITMENT
- The IUF Asia/Pacific Team we will develop structured education and training programs with materials in different languages to support the activities agreed in the decisions of the 14th Regional Conference.
- Our commitment is to support the implementation of these education and training programs by giving priority to this in our union activities and ensuring full participation by our members.
- We are committed to ensuring participation is fair and equitable and that there is strong participation by women members and youth.
DECISION NO.20 OUR COMMITMENT UNTIL THE 15th REGIONAL CONFERENCE 2026
The 14th IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Conference declares a commitment to implement all these decisions and to undertake these activities between now and the 15th Regional Conference in the last quarter of 2026.
COMMITMENT
- We will be relentless in implementing the decisions and commitments that frame the Priorities, Policies and Activities 2022-2026 so that we will be stronger unions and a stronger IUF by the end of 2026.
- Through rebuilding, reorganizing and recovery and coordinated efforts across the region to implement these decisions, we will be in a stronger position by the end of 2026 to launch a more ambitious plan for membership growth and an even stronger IUF in 2026-2031.
Our union, Our Power, Our IUF!
