Executive Committee united ahead of Congress

In a unanimous decision, Executive Committee members voted to recommend that Congress elects Jörg Hoffman as President of IndustriALL, Valter Sanches as General Secretary and Atle Høie, Jenny Holdcroft and Kemal Özkan as Assistant General Secretaries. President Berthold Huber and General Secretary, Jyrki Raina, will step down after leading IndustriALL since it was founded in June 2012.

The Executive Committee also came to a consensus on proposals to change IndustriALL’s Statutes at Congress to increase women’s participation in IndustriALL Global Union. They include:

• Introduce a target of 40 per cent women’s representation as part of the ongoing work towards equal rights and stronger representation of women throughout all levels of IndustriALL decision-making bodies.
• Strive towards a minimum of 40 per cent women representation in affiliates’ delegations to Congress. When there are only two delegates one should be a woman.
• For the Congress period 2016 to 2020, IndustriALL seeks for the elected leadership as a group, defined as the President, the Vice-Presidents, the General Secretary and the Assistant General Secretaries, to be composed of 30 per cent women. IndustriALL strives to increase that number to 40 per cent by the 2020 Congress.
• For the Women’s Committee to become a Standing member of the Executive Committee.

Among the new affiliations to IndustriALL, the Executive Committee also voted to accept the affiliation of the Union of the Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran – UMMI. The Iranian free and independent union movement keeps on fighting for the respect of fundamental labour rights, despite repression, imprisonment, and executions during the past dark years. International affiliation will help to strengthen UMMI’s position in Iran, and offer protection to its members.

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