This year the ILO celebrated its 100th anniversary. Founded in 1919 the United Nations body for labour has ever since fought for the rights of workers and has since its creation realized unimaginable things. Because of the fact that it was the Centenary, the number of attendants were more than double that of average years. There was a true atmosphere of formality with high-level guests.
The WOW was present with six persons. WOW President Wayne Prins was present for the first time. This was the same for WOW Vice-President Mikael Arendt Laursen. The delegation was completed by Maritza Chireno, Necie Lucero, Koffi Zounnadjala, and Bjørn van Heusden.
Various meetings with representatives of the ILO took place during the time the delegation was present. Meetings with Mr. Pierre Martinot-Lagarde, Special Adviser, Department of Partnerships and Field Support; Mrs. Amrita Sietaram, Senior Workers Specialist at the ILO Bureau for Worker’s Activities (ACTRAV); Mrs. Alette van Leur, Director of the Sectoral Policies Department of the ILO (SECTOR) amongst others.
In addition many informal meetings took place with unions from Indonesia (KSBSI), Togo (CSTT), Sri Lanka (TGCWU), China (ACFTU), Alternativa Democrática Sindical de las Américas (ADS) etc. Furthermore, all the delegates of the WOW were invited for the lunch-meeting with members of the European Centre of Workers Questions (EZA) present.
Important for the WOW was the possibility for the WOW President, Wayne Prins, to address the plenary. The speech can be found here: https://ilo.cetc.stream/2019/06/17/mr-prins-representative-world-organization-of-workers-closing-of-the-sitting/.
