On 2-3 June 2021, our union’s international parent organization IndustriAll European Trade Union’s 3rd Congress, which was held online, attended by our union’s President Alaaddin Sarı, General Secretary İhsan Malkoç, Collective Agreement and Education Department Director Üzeyir Ataman and International Relations Specialist Cemal Hoşver and many union representatives from European countries.
This Congress marks the start of the next four-year mandate period for industriAll Europe and it took place under circumstances dictated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Originally planned as a physical meeting in May 2020, the Congress was postponed and moved online.
The 3rd Congress of industriAll European Trade Union elected the organisation’s leadership team for the mandate period 2021-2025. Congress elected Luc Triangle as General Secretary, Isabelle Barthès and Judith Kirton-Darling as Deputy General Secretaries and Michael Vassiliadis as President of industriAll Europe.
Instead of deciding an an action plan for the next four years, Congress has adopted a Strategic Plan that sets out the priorities and actions of our organisation for the next two years.
The pandemic brings many uncertainties for workers, their jobs and the sectors, and this stands in the way of longer-term planning. A continuous monitoring of developments and adaptation of strategies and actions will therefore be necessary. To this end, a physical meeting of Congress delegates is planned to take place in 2023. On that occasion, delegates will review the implementation of the Strategic Plan 2021-23, debate and determine the political course for the ensuing years until the next industriAll Europe Congress in 2025.
Given the deep economic and social downturn caused by the pandemic and the profound impact on sectors and workers, Strategic Plan focuses on the industrial and social recovery from the crisis, as well as managing the twin green and digital transformations that have been accelerated by the pandemic and recovery plan. Safeguarding a Just Transition that leaves no worker and no region behind in the transition and recovery and ensuring that workers are at the centre of the transformations, will be IndustriALL Europe’s central objective.
Our union’s president Alaaddin Sarı, speaking at the congress emphasized that workers are going through very difficult conditions in all workplaces all over the world and in Europe, workers have to look to the future with confidence by sharing the solutions reached in the face of problems.
