To UITBB affiliated and supporter unions
Re : UITBB Women's Committee
Helsinki, 27 March 2009
Dear Comrades,
As you know, the 14th Congress/Conference of the UITBB, which was held in Athens in 2006, adopted a resolution on the creation of the UITBB Women's Committee and mandated the Secretariat to take the necessary measures in this respect.
In October 2007, first meeting attended by women trade unionists from 6 countries (Cyprus, Bangladesh, Denmark, Spain-Canary islands, Mali and Australia) was held in Lamaka, Cyprus. The meeting adopted a set of recommendations, which were submitted under the form of a detailed report by Comrade Marina Stavrinou Koukou (Cyprus Building, Wood, Mine & General Workers' Union) to the UITBB Executive Committee in Sao Paulo, in May 2008.
Following a substantial debate the Execitive Committee decided to convene a 2nd Women's meeting with the aim of elaborating detailed proposals regarding the organization, the structure and the future activ.!!y of the UITBB Women's Committee.
That meeting was held in November 2008 in Canberra, Australia, at the invitation of the CFMEU Construction & General Division, with the participation of 15 women delegates from Australia, Bangladesh, Colombia, Cyprus, India, Syria and Togo. The final report on this meeting has been published and is available on the UITBB website www.uitbb.org under "Documents".
We send you herewith the Executive summary with the recommendations, which have been sent to the UITBB Secretariat.
In accordance with the decision made by the Executive Committee and in order to speed up without any further delay UITBB activity on equity issues and women workers' rights, the Secretariat invites all UITBB affiliates and supporter unions:
- To appoint an equity or gender contact person and to send the name and e-mail address of this persop to the Helsinki Office. Once we have received the names, we shall establish a network headed by a coordinator/moderator.
- To send their nomination from the region for representatives on the Women's Committee, which will be elected by the next UITBB Congress/Conference and will be composed in line with the proposals of the Canberra meeting by 7 members (1 per continent plus one member from the Middle-East region).
We inform you that Comrade Marina Stavrinou Koukou (Cyprus Building, Wood, Mine & General Worker's Union) accepted the request by the Secretariat to represent our Trades Union International at the forthcoming International Labour Conference, in June 2009 in Geneva, and to take part in the general discussion on "Gender equality at the heart of decent work".
Looking forward to receiving your replies as early as possible we remain at your disposal for any further information on this matter.
With fraternal greetings.
Guerrino Gelmi
Administative Secretary
