Given the challenges facing workers across the world, international solidarity is more important than ever.
At the AFSCME convention on Monday, attendees heard from international labor leaders about common challenges facing workers and labor unions, and how to work across borders and languages to support each other.
“We need our international, multiracial, working-class solidarity more than ever,” said AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride, who moderated the discussion.
The panel included Euan Gibb of Public Services International (PSI) and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) National President Mark Hancock.
Gibb talked about PSI’s role as a federation of more than 700 unions from more than 150 countries in bringing together worker representatives to agree on resolutions that foster pro-worker change back home.
He talked specifically about the care economy — a key component of the “Fearless Agenda” AFSCME President Lee Saunders announced in his keynote address — and the common challenges facing care workers in different countries.
In the care sector, Gibb said, low worker pay, short staffing and burnout are common.
“Conditions are the most consistent across the globe” in this sector compared to others, he said, adding that workers constantly face psychological distress and moral injury or burnout.
“Our fight is really about equal pay for work of equal value,” he said.
Gibb mentioned an online platform, LabourStart, where workers can support each other across nations. He gave an example of LabourStart successfully supporting a PSI affiliate in Kenya, a union of medical doctors that negotiated a bargaining agreement with the government.
Hancock talked about a CUPE campaign to keep public water services in the public sector and draw attention to the struggle of indigenous communities to access safe drinking water. Called “Water is Life,” the campaign’s goal is to protect their communities’ access to water from profiteers.
Hancock and Gibb reminded AFSCME members in the audience of a couple of essential elements to fostering solidarity: good communication with fellow workers, including one-on-one conversations, and sharing our victories, to show others how it’s done and inspire them to take action.
Gibb is a regional assistant in PSI’s Inter-America Office and a global multinationals organizer. Formed in 1907, PSI is a global federation of public service unions like AFSCME and has offices in every continent. More information about PSI is available here.
Hancock has been the national president of CUPE, Canada’s largest union, since November 2015. Before that, he spent two terms as president and four terms as secretary-treasurer of CUPE in the province of British Columbia. He became a CUPE member in 1984 and served 15 years as president of Local 498, representing Port Coquitlam Municipal Employees. More information about Hancock is available here.
Euan Gibb of Public Services International (left) and Mark Hancock of the Canadian Union of Public Employees joined AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride to discuss the need for international solidarity. Photo by Javeon Butler
