THE 17th Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) began in Durban, South Africa on October 5, 2015. It started with George Mavrikos, general secretary of WFTU announcing the names of the 45 member presidium. The presidium includes Comrades K Hemalata (CITU) and Amarjeet Kaur (AITUC) from India.

The president of COSATU welcomed the delegates. Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa gave the opening remarks. Covering a gamut of issues, political and economical all over the world, he explained the challenges faced by the working class of South Africa. He expressed concern about the problems faced by the migrants and cautioned about the xenophobia created in developed countries. He expressed solidarity with the working Class all over the world in their fight, quoting Marx “Working Class of the World Unite, You have Nothing to lose but chains.”

After a short video on the activities of WFTU, George Mavrikos presented the report. In his presentation, he congratulated the WFTU affiliates and working class of India for the massive and successive all India strikes in India. He emphasised the need for working class solidarity with poor peasants. He called upon the affiliates to pay more attention to organise young workers and women.

On the very serious problem of migration, he called upon the affiliates to stand and fight for the rights of the immigrants and refugees and organise the migrant workers in trade unions.

The report shows an increase of 18 percent in membership from 78 to 92 million.

The congress is attended by 1500 delegates from 132 trade union affiliates from 112 countries from five continents including 340 women.

From India, K Hemalata took part in the discussion.

CITU delegation includes Swadesh Devroye, deputy general secretary, WFTU, K Hemalata, A R Sindhu, Dipak Dasgupta, Elamaram Kareem, K K Divakaran, S Varalakshmi, P N Choudhury, Amitava Guha, Debanjan Chakraborty, Muthusundaram, S N Reddy, M S Raja, R Singaravelu, Giriraj Singh, Pradip Biswas, A Sreekumar, P Abhimanyu, Nagen Chutia and Bushan Patil.