Amendments to the Constitution at 40th Congress

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II.   AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION

Resolution A to Amend the Constitution: Women Transport Workers

The 40th Congress of the ITF, meeting in Vancouver from 14 to 21 August 2002, RESOLVES to amend the Constitution as follows:

i.   PREAMBLE

a.   Amend paragraph (2) as follows:

b.   Delete: “colour, nationality, sex, race or creed.”

c.   Replace with: “ gender, nationality, race or colour, age, sexual orientation, disability or beliefs”

d.   This proposal is intended to modernise the language of the Constitution and better reflect the concerns of younger members.

ii.   RULE I: AIMS AND METHODS

a.   Amend paragraph (2) (a) to add a reference to core labour standards, as follows:

b.   “To promote universal recognition of Conventions Nos. 87 and 98 of the International Labour Organization, concerning respectively Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise and to Bargain Collectively, and other fundamental labour standards and relevant instruments of that Organization;

c.   This proposal is intended to reflect the international trade union movement’s commitment to the Fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organization, concerning respectively the areas of freedom of association, the abolition of forced labour, discrimination and the elimination of child labour.

iii.   RULE IV: CONGRESS

a.   Add the following after paragraph (5):

b.   “Organisations shall aim to ensure that the number of women delegates shall be at least proportional to their share of the union’s membership. Nevertheless, each delegation consisting of more than three persons shall aim to include at least one woman delegate”

c.   This proposal is intended to encourage unions to increase women’s participation in the ITF’s most important decision-making body. The proposal does not require unions to include women in their delegations but is made with the understanding that it is part of a gradual approach to achieve better representation of women at Congress.

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iv.   RULE VII: PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENTS

a.   Delete: “The President and four of the Vice-Presidents shall each come from a different electoral group and one shall be a woman”

b.   Replace with: “Of the six positions, at least one shall be a woman and five shall come from different electoral groups”.

c.   The Women’s Committee proposes the re-wording as the current paragraph’s wording may not be clear and could be taken to mean that the President could never be a woman or that more than one woman could not be elected to these positions.

v.   RULE XII: WOMEN TRANSPORT WORKERS’ CONFERENCE AND COMMITTEE

a.   Amend paragraph (1) to read:

b.   A Women Transport Workers' Conference shall be held prior to as part of each Ordinary Congress.

c.   This amendment would treat the ITF women’s structures in the same way as the ITF Section structures. It would give the decisions taken by the Women’s Conference and the election of the Women’s Committee status equivalent to that of Section Committee elections held during Congress ie subject to final ratification by the Plenary Session.

vi.   RULE XII: WOMEN TRANSPORT WORKERS’ CONFERENCE AND COMMITTEE

a.   Amend paragraph (3) as follows:

b.   Delete: “The Women Transport Workers' Committee shall be elected by Congress”.

c.   Replace with: “ The Women Transport Workers’ Conference shall elect a Committee”

d.   This amendment has the same intention as the one above, at (v.).

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vii.   RULE XII: WOMEN TRANSPORT WORKERS’ CONFERENCE AND COMMITTEE

a.   Also amend paragraph (3) as follows:

b.   After the sentence which ends “… and inform interested affiliates thereof”, insert:

c.   “ To this end the Committee may propose to the General Secretary that meetings and/or conferences be convened. The General Secretary shall submit to the Management Committee at each meeting a schedule of such meetings proposed for approval. In urgent cases the General Secretary shall be authorised to call meetings after consultation with the President of the ITF.”

d.   This amendment is also intended to bring the women’s structures into line with those laid out for the Sections (current Rule XIII). Meetings and conferences during the inter-Congress period would be dealt with in the same way as those of the Section.

Resolution B to Amend the Constitution: Gender Mainstreaming

The 40th Congress of the ITF, meeting in Vancouver from 14 to 21 August 2002,

1.   RESOLVES to amend the Constitution as follows:

2.   At the end of Rule I, Paragraph 2, c, to add:

“including equal opportunities for all, and gender mainstreaming in all ITF activities”

3.   This amendment is intended to resolve the fact that equal opportunities policies cannot be "neutral", they respect differences between men and women and can only be successful if they are an integral and explicit part of trade union policy which those involved on all levels of trade union activity feel committed to. As early as 1995 a resolution was adopted by the 4th Worldwide Women's Conference in Beijing calling upon the nations of the world to implement the principle of gender mainstreaming. By now, many countries, among them the member states of the European Union, have committed themselves to this principle. Not just the national governments but also the trade unions worldwide are called upon to contribute, within the limits of their possibilities, to making this political approach a reality.

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