Supporting workers across borders
Christy Hoffman was elected the General Secretary of UNI Global Union in June 2018. Photo: UNI Global Union
UNI Global Union celebrates its 20th birthday this year. During this twenty-year journey, UNI Global Union has negotiated almost 60 global agreements with multinational companies.
As societies become increasingly interdependent and multinational companies dominate workplaces, international trade union cooperation is more important than ever before. UNI Global Union, based in Switzerland, is a global union representing 20 million workers from over 150 countries worldwide. PAM is one of its affiliates.
”One of our key roles is to bring workers together across the world who have the same employer or work in the same sector to build power. That way workers and unionists are able to talk one another and create strategies and develop plans to raise standards across the board”, says UNI Global Union General Secretary Christy Hoffman.
This year UNI Global Union celebrates its twenty-year journey in defending worker´s rights. UNI Global Union has negotiated almost 60 global agreements with multinational companies, which Hoffman considers as one of the most important achievements over the past two decades. In addition to agreements with corporations, UNI was also instrumental in the creation of the Bangladesh Accord, a legally-binding agreement covering more than 2 million garment workers, which Hoffman herself was negotiating.
”All of those agreements have been successes, but what the real success has been having a coherent vision that worker organizing was important and then making it happen”, she says.
What Hoffman would like to see in 20 years from now is more cooperation between multinationals companies and global unions.
“Having a relationship with a global union should be part of the practice of every multinational company. I hope that in the following years it would become more normalized.”
While having a relationship with a union is considered somewhat normal in European countries, in many other parts of the World, there are few unions and their environments are hostile, Hoffman reminds.
”We have to find a way for workers coming together particularly in Asia so that there can be organized power.”
UNI Global Union hosts a virtual event to celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 2021 due to Covid-19.