ITF president Paddy Crumlin, who is based in Sydney, said: “As a trade union organisation we’ve identified Asia Pacific as a major area of growth. We want to see more unions in the region affiliating to the ITF family. We’ll be working in countries where we believe we can help build stronger unions and make solid improvements to labour standards.
“The location and stability of Singapore make it the ideal hub for this work and we know the new office is going to play a vital role in coordinating and managing our activities across Asia Pacific, together with the other ITF centres of organising excellence in the region.”
ITF general secretary Steve Cotton added that this new resource was another opportunity to support workers on the ground, and that the tripartite approach to labour negotiations in Singapore was really working and the ITF wanted to explore how it could apply that method successfully elsewhere.
The ITF congress in 2018 will be held in Singapore, so the ITF and its affiliates there are working closely together to organise the event, which will welcome trade union representatives from 150 countries. The new ITF office – where three members of staff will be based – will play a massive role in co-ordinating that congress.
The ITF also has regional offices in Amman, Brussels, Nairobi, Ouagadougou and Rio de Janeiro.
