Solidarity and organisation: the foundation of our work

At our 2005 Congress, we adopted an Action Programme setting out four main areas for action, which include:

• global structures to meet global challenges
• strategies to engage transnational companies
• solidarity and organising
• a social dimension to economic globalisation

In our commitment to creating global structures to meet global challenges, the IMF will:

• continue to build a global union able to co-ordinate and implement actions at all levels, wherever and whenever they are required;
• continue to work with other Global Union Federations and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD to pursue the interests of its affiliates;
• encourage cooperation and build unity between unions; and
• begin building information networks between affiliates and maintain and effective communications system.

As we develop strategies to engage transnational companies, the IMF will:

• continue to focus on building and maintaining solidarity among trade unions and workers across the global production chains of metalworking companies and industries;
• strengthen links between unions that represent workers across production chains in transnational corporations through the IMF World Company Councils and sector-based networks and action groups;
• negotiate and implement international framework agreements with transnational corporations;
• find and support other mechanisms that engage transnational corporations.

As we strengthen solidarity and capacity to organise, the IMF will:

• defend and promote collective bargaining, assisting affiliates in bargaining on wages and working conditions, and on outsourcing, job security and other issues associated with corporate restructuring;
• promote union building by co-ordinating and supporting projects as well as providing advice to its affiliates on issues such as organising strategies, unions structures and equal rights;
• promote equal rights, including improving the representation of women in IMF structures;
• protect and promote health and safety at work, including campaigning for a ban on asbestos;
• take international solidarity actions in support of social achievements, workers' rights, organising and collective bargaining; and
• organise the unorganised, particularly of women, young workers and non-manual workers and in export processing zones and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

To promote a social dimension to economic globalisation, the IMF will:

• cooperate with and be part of the social movement against globalisation that favours only the transnational corporations;
• demand that all national governments implement internationally recognised Core Labour Standards, including the right to organise and bargain collectively, and that these rights are included in all trade agreements; and
• fight for sustainable economic development and growth as described in the document Strategies for an alternative economic programme, based on the following four pillars:
  • job creation and purchasing power
  • debt cancellation and development assistance
  • regulations capital movements
  • reform of the global institutions of governance