In December 2023, the Harare-based blanket and bedding manufacturing company told workers to sign fixed-term contracts or face termination. The workers rejected the move, arguing that it violated Zimbabwe’s Labour Act and stripped them of hard-won job security.
With support from the Zimbabwe Textile Workers Union (ZTWU), an affiliate of IndustriALL Global Union, the workers challenged the Waverley Blankets dismissals through arbitration and the courts. After setbacks, the union won the case on appeal at the Supreme Court.
Matika, Gwisai and Partners, the union’s lawyers, argued that an employer cannot use a waiver to take away workers’ rights and that any termination of employment must comply with Zimbabwean labour laws. They also argued that the workers never agreed to have their permanent contracts replaced with fixed-term contracts.
The court challenge was supported by IndustriALL.
Waverley Blankets dismissals pushed workers into hardship
For Emmanuel Chadiwa, the Waverley union chairperson who had worked at the company as a mechanic since 2010, the dismissal pushed his family into crisis.
“I last reported for work on 15 January 2024, when security guards told us not to enter the company gate. We returned the next day hoping the company would allow us back, but nothing changed. That is when we realised our fight for justice would take a long time,”
said Chadiwa.
“Life became very difficult. I had children in school and no money for exam and school fees. I survived by doing piece jobs offloading trucks, sometimes earning only US$10 a week, a fraction of the US$340 I earned monthly on the shop floor. It was painful.”
“As a worker with a disability, losing my job changed my life for the worse. I was pushed into poverty and uncertainty, surviving on small piece jobs and living off the streets,”
said Matthew Ngwaru, former union vice chairperson at Waverley who has been with the company since 2009.
Supreme Court victory restores workers’ income and dignity
Munyaradzi Jaricha, who worked as an internal security officer, said:
“Winning this case means justice has been done after the unfair dismissal we suffered. For over a year, we struggled with no income, but this victory gives us hope and proves that workers’ rights can be protected when workers stand together with their union.”
“Since 16 December 2023, I have been doing odd jobs and vending to feed my family. Without a stable salary, it has been difficult to pay rent and meet basic needs.”
“The dismissal affected my family badly. We struggled to put food on the table daily. This victory brings relief because it means we may get our jobs back and provide for our families again.”
Norman Makono, ZTWU general secretary, said the Supreme Court ruling was a victory for justice and workers’ rights:
“Workers are celebrating this court victory while waiting for Waverley to inform them of the return-to-work date.”
Atle Høie, IndustriALL general secretary, said:
“This is a powerful reminder that employers cannot simply dismiss workers with impunity. We applaud ZTWU for standing firm in defending workers’ rights. It is however scandalous that the fees for bringing a case to the Supreme Court are so high that it is almost impossible for unions to do so.”
Take action: Stop union busting at Taidoc Technology, Taiwan
TaiDoc, a medical equipment company based in Taiwan R.O.C, committed various acts of discrimination against Filipino women migrant workers beginning in 2025. The women workers were forced to stay in company hostels and subjected to curfew, they were forced to do unpaid cleaning work in factories if returning to hostels late.
The women workers formed the Taidoc Technology Labor Union (TTLU) and affiliated with ROCMU in August 2025. TaiDoc dismissed seven union activists including the president Elizabeth Basas and evicted them from the hostels in February 2026. The company organized an illegal meeting and announced that other employees had “taken over” the union. It then filed a lawsuit against the union activists.
Acting on the workers’ and TTLU’s complaints, Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor ruled that the company committed to unfair labour practice and violated the principle of freedom of association. TaiDoc was ordered to reinstate the workers and fined NTD200,000 (US$6,371).
Lennon Wang, TTLU general secretary and ROCMU spokesperson said:
“We ask for solidarity support from brothers and sisters worldwide to end forced labour, discrimination and intimidation against Filipino women migrant workers at TaiDoc. We demand the company to fully comply with the Ministry of Labor’s ruling on their reinstatement, pay back wages for the unpaid cleaning work, refund all the placement fees and service fees for all members and drop all the lawsuits against the union officers.”
IndustriALL director Alexander Ivanou said:
“IndustriALL stands in full solidarity with ROCMU members in their fight for justice. Taiwan has integrated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights into domestic laws, which protects workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively. We call on TaiDoc to fully implement the Ministry of Labor’s decision, permanently reinstate the dismissed workers, provide full compensation for unpaid work and cease all anti-union practices. Taiwanese authorities must ensure that international labour and human rights standards are respected and enforced for all workers, including migrant workers.”
India affiliates chart strategies for youth and women leadership
That future was already visible in Nagpur, where nearly 70 per cent of participants were attending an IndustriALL meeting for the first time. On 13–14 July, young trade unionists, women leaders and senior union representatives came together under the IndustriALL–Union to Union Building Inclusive Unions project to develop practical strategies for strengthening youth leadership, building second-tier leadership and creating more representative union structures.
Youth meeting sets roadmap for stronger union structures
Participants agreed that organizing must remain the movement’s top priority, particularly among young, contract and precarious workers. They developed action plans centred on grassroots organizing, targeted membership campaigns, leadership development, mentorship and stronger use of digital tools to engage young workers. Participants also exchanged organizing experiences across affiliates, identifying practical approaches that could be adapted across sectors.
Senior union leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening youth and women committees across affiliated unions and ensuring that increased participation translates into meaningful representation and decision-making responsibilities.
Sanjay Vadhavkar, general secretary of Steel, Metal & Engineering Workers’ Federation of India and IndustriALL executive committee member stated:
“Strong unions are built by developing leaders, not waiting for them to emerge. That means continuously creating pathways for young workers and women to take on greater responsibility.”
Sanjay Singh, general secretary of Indian National Electricity Workers Federation and IndustriALL executive committee member added:
“The continued growth of our movement depends on young workers and women. By bringing them into leadership, we build stronger unions, increase membership and give the trade union movement new direction.”
Women leaders focus on building inclusive workplaces
The meeting was followed by a national women’s meeting on 15–16 July, where participants developed strategies on occupational safety and health, gender-based violence and harassment, maternity protection, women’s leadership and stronger representation in decision-making bodies.
Participants also visited Western Coalfields Limited (WCL), touring both open-cast and underground mines to experience the working environment firsthand. The visit prompted discussions on what a truly inclusive mining industry should look like as more women enter the sector, including suggestions for practical improvements that would better support women workers. The visit was a reminder that making industries more inclusive is about more than opening doors to women, because it also means redesigning workplaces that were never built with them in mind.
Dhanyalakshmi Karthikeyan, representative from Working People Trade Union Council reflects:
“Understanding the basics of organizing, workers’ rights and labour laws gives young trade women unionists like me the foundation to represent workers with confidence.”
IndustriALL South Asia regional secretary, Ashutosh Bhattacharya, says:
“Creating space for young workers and women to lead is not simply about representation but about ensuring those with an equal stake in the future of work have a voice in shaping it.”
Trade unions push for fairer global trade policy
The participants learned about the United States’ generalized system of preferences (GSP). They also learned how an additional tariff of US$4.4 billion was imposed on the products of Thailand. This tariff was due to violation of labour rights.
The US customs also regularly invokes section 307 of the Tariff Act and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to withhold imported products suspected of using forced labour. For example, the products of several Malaysian rubber gloves companies were withheld for complaints.
The executive director of the Competence Centre for Human Rights Due Diligence Kelly Fay Rodríguez outlined a range of mechanisms now available to unions globally. These allow them to raise labour complaints, including:
Labor Advisory Committee under the office of the US Trade Representative, National administrative offices (NAO) under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. In addition, Labor Rapid Response Mechanism of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Trade and Sustainable Development Chapters under EU trade agreements. Also, Risk assessment and reporting mechanism under the European Corporate Sustainable Due Diligence (CSDDD).
Rodríguez pointed out the European Union’s trade agreements require countries to make continued and sustained efforts to ratify 8 ILO fundamental conventions. In addition, labour dispute findings in Korea drove the Korean government to ratify ILO Conventions 29, 87 and 98.
In exchanging their experience on trade policy and labour issues, trade unionists raised concerns about forced labour and union busting at nickel mines in Morowali, Indonesia. They also highlighted anti-union discrimination and forced labour at TaiDoc Technology Corporation in Taiwan R.O.C. Furthermore, they also discussed tax avoidance by digital companies as a related challenge to fair trade and labour standards.
Participants plan to check with their respective governments on the status of trade agreements in their countries. They will also make the union’s role visible as part of the social dialogue. Meanwhile, participants also agreed to continue building capacity and awareness on trade agreements. They plan to focus on how to use available mechanisms.
Associate professor, Verna Dinah Viajar, from the University of the Philippines reminded the participants about the historical context of trade agreements. She highlighted the role of trade unions to fight for trade justice and to reshape more equitable trade agreements. Moreover, she encouraged them to support national industrial policies in developing countries.
“IndustriALL Congress resolved that trade is not an end in itself but must benefit workers and societies as a whole. Labour conditionalities play an important role in this regard. Therefore, IndustriALL counters concrete violations of workers’ and trade union rights by multinational companies or dependent suppliers along the supply chains by using international mechanisms,”
said Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.
Union opposes De Beers plans to retrench 1214 workers
Venetia is South Africa’s largest diamond mine, producing roughly four-fifths of the country’s output. On 14 July, De Beers and its local sales arm, De Beers Sightholder Sales South Africa (DBSSSA), issued a Section 189A notice announcing the two-year production pause. NUM, an IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, is fighting the move, calling it a devastating blow to workers, families and the communities built around the mine in Limpopo province.
Section 189A of the Labour Relations Act requires employers to consult formally with unions before large-scale retrenchments. NUM says De Beers is treating this as a formality rather than genuine negotiation, presenting a downturn it has long known about as a sudden emergency.
Masibulele Naki, NUM’s national health and safety secretary and chief negotiator for the diamond sector, said jobs should not be sacrificed whenever a company comes under economic pressure and that section 189A exists to explore alternatives, not rubber-stamp a decision already made.
Alternatives on the table
NUM wants De Beers and DBSSSA to exhaust several measures before cutting jobs: retraining and upskilling, temporary job-preservation arrangements, cuts to non-essential expenditure and a review of executive and management costs. The union argues workers’ pay is not the source of the company’s difficulties, and should not be sacrificed to protect profits and executive benefits.
NUM also suspects the production pause could become cover for replacing permanent workers with cheaper, less unionized contract labour once operations resume — a tactic increasingly used by mining companies to cut costs.
NUM says it will participate fully in the statutory consultation while calling on the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources and the Department of Employment and Labour to intervene.
“Workers’ wages, jobs and livelihoods cannot become the first target whenever management seeks to cut costs,” said Masibulele Naki.
Paule-France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub-Saharan Africa, said:
“Diamond market pressures cannot be used to push workers into poverty. Venetia’s workers deserve a fair process that protects their livelihoods.”
Diamond market under pressure
The global diamond industry faces an acute structural crisis. Between 2015 and 2025 the natural diamond market fell 16 per cent in volume and 33 per cent in value, driven by a flood of cheaper lab-grown diamonds mass-produced in China and India; natural diamond prices have fallen roughly 30 per cent since 2022. Industry responses, including the Luanda Accord’s coordinated marketing fund and calls for mandatory “synthetic” labelling, have yet to stop the decline.
The Luanda Accord was signed on 18 June 2025 in Angola’s capital by a coalition of African producer governments — Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo — alongside De Beers, the African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA), the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, India’s Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre. Signatories commit to allocating 1 per cent of annual rough diamond sales revenue to the Natural Diamond Council to fund a global marketing campaign for natural diamonds.
Five areas where intersectionality changes union work
This is where intersectionality becomes practical. It is not an abstract theory but a way of working. It asks unions to look at who their members actually are, identify where different forms of discrimination and disadvantage overlap and adapt their strategies accordingly.
At the 4th IndustriALL Congress in Sydney in November 2025, affiliates unanimously adopted a feminist resolution calling for intersectional policies where gaps exist. Following Atle Høie, IndustriALL general secretary’s recent opinion on the topic, the next question is practical: what does this look like in day-to-day union work?
Intersectionality in one sentence
An intersectional approach asks one practical question: who is being left behind and what can the union do differently to include them?
Here are five areas where an intersectional approach makes unions stronger.
1. Collective bargaining
Most bargaining teams now address the gender pay gap. An intersectional approach asks one further question: which women are furthest behind and why?
The answer is rarely uniform. It may be migrant women in outsourced roles, women on short-term contracts excluded from bonuses, or older women passed over for training that leads to promotion. For example, a collective agreement may secure equal base pay while subcontracted migrant workers remain excluded from bonuses, promotion opportunities or skills training. A pay equity clause that misses them looks good on paper but leaves the widest gaps open.
The benefit: bargaining that reaches the workers most at risk of being left behind strengthens the whole agreement. When members see that collective bargaining delivers for their own reality, confidence in the union grows and so does collective strength.
2. Organizing
Every union knows where its density is weakest. Intersectionality asks why those workers are not joining and treats the answer as an organizing problem, not a membership problem.
Meetings scheduled when shift-working mothers cannot attend. Materials produced only in the majority language. Recruiters who all look the same. Each is a barrier the union controls and can remove.
The benefit: stronger organizing in exactly the parts of the workforce where unions have the greatest opportunity to grow. IndustriALL’s Action Plan 2025–2029 commits affiliates to strategies that engage and organize young workers, women, white-collar workers and workers in precarious employment. An intersectional approach helps turn that commitment into practical organizing.
3. Education and training
A shop steward is only as effective as their ability to recognize what a member is facing. A grievance may look like a performance dispute and actually be harassment compounded by a worker’s migration status or contract type.
Intersectional union education trains stewards to see the full picture. It also examines access to the training itself: who can attend, in which language, at what time and at what cost.
The benefit: stewards who are better equipped to resolve members’ problems and education programmes that develop the union’s next generation of leaders from the full diversity of its membership.
4. Industrial policy and Just Transition
Industrial change never affects every worker equally. The transition to a greener, more automated industry is not gender neutral and it is not neutral on age, contract type or migration status either. When a plant closes or retools, the workers least likely to be retrained and redeployed are those in precarious contracts, those with care responsibilities that rule out relocation and those already at the margins of the workforce.
The Action Plan is explicit: a gender-neutral strategy towards technological change and the green transition will set gender equality back. Intersectional industrial policy means asking, in every transition negotiation, who gets the new jobs, who gets the retraining and who is quietly left out.
The benefit: a Just Transition that is genuinely just. By identifying who risks being excluded before decisions are made, unions are better placed to defend every worker affected by restructuring, not only the most visible ones.
5. Union structures and leadership
The feminist resolution calls for a change in power relations, structures and cultures within unions themselves, not just in their demands on employers.
In practice: collect data on who holds positions at every level of the union. Give women’s structures and youth structures real mandates, not advisory roles. Look at meeting times, travel requirements and unwritten expectations that filter out everyone whose life does not fit the traditional mould of a union officer.
The benefit: leadership that reflects the workforce the union wants to organize and represent. Workers are more likely to participate in organizations where they can see themselves and believe their voices will be heard.
The objections worth answering
“We don’t have the resources to cater to everyone”
This is the objection union leaders raise most often and it deserves a straight answer. A union may have policies that serve the large majority of members well and the rest only partly and no budget for special programmes on top.
The first answer is that intersectionality is not a set of special programmes. It is one extra question asked in the work the union already does. The bargaining round is happening anyway: before the demands are finalized, ask who the package misses. The steward training is running anyway: check whether it is only accessible to workers who are free at certain times and speak the majority language. Asking these questions costs nothing. Separate programmes for every group is precisely the model this approach replaces.
The second answer is that the partly-protected minority is not a separate problem from the well-protected majority. Consider a factory with 450 permanent workers on a strong agreement and 50 subcontracted cleaners and warehouse staff with little or no protection. No employer attacks the 450 head-on. That is a war with a strong union. Instead, a little more is outsourced each year, the cleaning, then the logistics, then part of production, until a cheaper workforce is doing comparable work alongside union members. From then on, every negotiation starts with a threat to move more work out the door. Retiring members are not replaced. New hires come in on worse terms.
The 450 never lose a battle. Their protection is hollowed out from the side and the 50 unprotected workers are the opening that makes it possible.
Reaching the workers at the margins is therefore not charity from the majority. It is the majority removing the employer’s cheaper alternative. The resources argument has it backwards: what a union cannot afford is to leave the opening there.
“Trying to represent everyone means representing no one”
Some worry that trying to represent everyone means representing no one. It is an old argument and it mistakes complexity for division.
A union that only fully represents some of its members has already made a choice about who matters. That choice is felt by the members at the margins and exploited by the employers who put them there. Divide and rule is not a union strategy. It is a management one.
Intersectionality does not create divisions, it helps unions remove the barriers that divide workers in the first place. When unions understand the different experiences of their members, they are better equipped to build solidarity across gender, race, age, migration status, disability and employment status. Stronger solidarity leads to stronger bargaining, stronger organizing and stronger unions.
Intersectionality does not ask unions to represent everyone at the expense of anyone. It asks unions to be strong enough to represent everyone at once. That is not a dilution of purpose. That is the purpose.
We are all in for Equality, slogan from IndustriALL’s women’s conference in Sydney Australia, november 2025
Ukrainian union leader jailed for doing his job
Zhuhaievych was arrested as chairman of the supervisory board of PJSC Ukrproftur, a company the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine set up to manage trade union assets and delegated him to represent as shareholder. The charges stem from decisions the board took collectively, within its lawful powers, which he was obliged to sign.
This should be a property dispute before Ukraine’s civil and commercial courts. Instead, it has become a criminal case against an individual trade union leader. A final judgment of the Supreme Arbitration Court of Ukraine confirmed the lawfulness of Ukrproftur’s establishment. That judgment dates back to January 1997.
The ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has repeatedly found that detaining trade union leaders over their legitimate activities severely violates freedom of association. This applies under Conventions 87 and 98, both ratified by Ukraine. The case forms part of a long-running conflict over trade union property in Ukraine, parts of which have reached ILO supervisory bodies. It also comes as labour law developments in the country already concern unions there.
It also sits awkwardly alongside Ukraine’s bid for EU membership. Judicial independence and the rule of law sit at the core of accession talks. A country cannot advance towards Europe while prosecuting trade union leaders for doing their job.
Together with industriAll Europe, IndustriALL Global Union has written to Ukraine’s President, its prosecutor general, the ILO and the European Commission, calling for Yarema Zhuhaievych’s release.
“The charges against him must be dropped, the property dispute must be settled in the civil courts where it belongs, and trade union rights must be respected. He is, in other words, being prosecuted for doing what his mandate and the law required of him. What concerns us is the use of criminal law, and of prolonged pre-trial detention, against a trade union leader for doing his job,”
said Judith Kirton-Darling, general secretary of industriAll European Trade Union, and Atle Høie, general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.
KMWU strike over subcontracted workers’ bargaining rights
The strike follows a landmark amendment to Korea’s Trade Union and Labour Relations Adjustment Act. For the first time. the Act allows subcontracted workers to bargain collectively with the principal employers who actually control their pay and conditions, rather than only with the smaller subcontracting firms that formally employ them. Since the amendment came into force, KMWU has put forward collective bargaining proposals across the metal sector. But many multinational companies have simply refused to come to the table, despite the change in the law.
For KMWU members, that refusal is the point of the strike. Subcontracted workers earn just 65.2 per cent of the wage of directly employed workers, according to a survey by Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labour. And the gap is widening: wages for regular workers grew 15.3 per cent, against only 6 per cent for non-regular workers. Union members say multinational companies are refusing to share the profits that subcontracted workers helped generate.
KMWU is striking for:
good faith bargaining from principal employers
revitalization of industry-wide bargaining, employment and human rights protections as AI is introduced into workplaces
a metal industry minimum wage of 2,608,040 won (US$1,716) per month
a flat base wage increase of 149,600 won (US$98) per month
“The international labour movement hears the voice of the Korean subcontracted workers,”
says Atle Høie, general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.
“The right to collective bargaining is a fundamental right and has to be respected as such. We are committed to supporting our brothers and sisters in the fight for their collective bargaining rights and decent living wages. We will bring the struggle against precarious work in Korea to the attention of worldwide workers.”
Unions meet to tackle Central Asia’s investment boom
A region in rapid change
The Central Asian sub-region is going through rapid growth and change, as countries democratize and open their economies to the world. Investment is flowing in from China, Russia, the Gulf, Türkiye, European countries and elsewhere, often through joint ventures.
For unions in the region, who have traditionally worked mostly with state-owned enterprises or local private companies, the entry of global capital is a new experience. It raises new challenges, as investors have different expectations over the leeway they expect over their workforce. Different working cultures are also clashing with traditional industrial practices.
The economy is also seeing growth in self-employment and platform work.
Union representation at automobile industry
Automobile industry investments are in increasing in Central Asia, particularly in Uzbekistan. Quite a number of multinationals are already in place and struggle for union representation is a continuous effort. For example, Chinese electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturer BYD recently opened a factory in Uzbekistan with an annual production capacity of 50,000 cars. As part of the joint venture agreement, the metalworkers’ union secured recognition and collective bargaining cover and workers earn more than the national average. However concerns remain about the level of influence unions have to improve conditions further.
Investment across sectors
Investment is flowing into oil, gas and energy and the region is at the beginning of an expected renewables boom, with wind and solar projects under way.
The chemical and pharmaceutical sector is also seeing foreign investment and the commodities boom, with rising gold and copper prices, keeps the mining industry in a strong position.
The development of the Trans-Caspian Corridor, a modern revival of an ancient trade route between China and Europe, is raising the region’s profile as a logistics hub. This is likely to drive growth in supply chain manufacturing for the automotive, energy and other sectors.
New ILO convention on platform work
The ILO ACTRAV senior specialist Gocha Aleksandria spoke about the results of the recent International Labour Conference and the new ILO Convention on the Platform Economy, C193. He also spoke about ratification rates in the sub-region, which are high, and the level and quality of implementation and social dialogue.
Tools for organizing global capital
IndustriALL campaigns and organizing director, Walton Pantland, spoke about tools to tame global capital, including human rights due diligence (HRDD), investor engagement, OECD complaints mechanisms and complaints processes through international financial institutions. He also stressed the importance of organizing newly emerging sectors.
The discussion was lively and unions enjoyed exchanging views on the changing economy and opportunities for union growth.
Interest and appetite from the unions for international cooperation and solidarity
While IndustriALL affiliates re-affirmed their strong commitment for closer cooperation at international level, non-affiliated unions attended the meetings expressed their interest and appetite to learn more about IndustriALL with an intention to join and participate in the global structures.
“The economy in this region is growing rapidly as global capital moves in to invest in raw materials, manufacturing and energy. There is tremendous opportunity for union growth. We need to make sure that this vital part of the global economy is well-organized and that the unions are connected to their peers in other countries,”
said Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.
Solidarity has never mattered more: unionists ahead of Durham Miners Gala
Hosted at the historic Redhills Durham Miners’ Hall, the roundtable focused on defending trade union values in industrial communities undergoing profound economic and industrial transformation. Participants discussed the growing pressures created by geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty and the green and digital transitions, reaffirming that workers must remain at the centre of industrial change.
The discussions opened with reflections from ITUC general secretary Luc Triangle on the role of trade unions in shaping a Just Transition and safeguarding quality jobs, workers’ rights and democratic participation.
Atle Hoie, IndustriALL general secretary, said:
“Trade unionism is under attack. We need to stick together and defy anti-democratic far-right movements. We cannot allow for populists exploiting workers’ fear of losing status. Through international trade union solidarity can we push back on corporate profit maximization at the cost of decent wages and trade union rights.”
Speakers highlighted the common challenges facing industrial regions across the world and underscored the importance of cross-border solidarity in defending workers’ interests.
IndustriAll Europe general secretary Judith Kirton-Darling said:
“In volatile times it is more important than ever that unions speak up and show their power against deregulatory and trade union busting policies. As a restructuring wave rolls over Europe unions must send a clear message in defense of proactive industrial policy making with strong social conditionalities that promote quality jobs and strong social dialogue.”
Participants agreed that industrial transformation must go hand in hand with quality employment, investment in industrial communities and strong social protections to ensure that no worker or region is left behind.
The roundtable concluded by looking ahead to the 140th Durham Miners’ Gala, where participants joined trade unionists, workers and their families from across the UK and abroad in one of Europe’s largest celebrations of trade union solidarity.
Organised by the Durham Miners’ Association since 1871, the Durham Miners’ Gala—known as the “Big Meeting”— brings mining communities and trade unionists to the streets of Durham, celebrating the enduring values of solidarity, community and working-class culture.
The roundtable and the gala together sent a powerful message: in times of uncertainty and rapid industrial change, international trade union solidarity remains more important than ever. By standing together across borders, unions will continue to fight for workers’ rights, quality industrial jobs and a Just Transition that leaves no one behind.
