News and articles

January 2017

  1. Sharan Burrow: What are the challenges and opportunities for unions in 2017?

    30 January 2017

    How can women’s trade union membership be improved and what are the unions’ priorities regarding the discussion on the future of work? These are some of the major challenges facing the trade union movement in 2017. In the following interview, Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) discusses the main achievements of the trade union movement in 2016 and highlights major challenges and opportunities for unions in 2017.

July 2015

  1. Priti Darooka on protecting vulnerable workers

    09 July 2015

    Priti Darooka is the founder and executive director of PWESCR (Programme on Women's Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) in India. She discusses innovative approaches to protect vulnerable workers, and more particularly women.

March 2015

  1. © Antoine Lorgnier / Only World 2022
    ILO: Progress on gender equality at work remains inadequate

    06 March 2015

    While there have been many achievements on gender equality since the Beijing Declaration on women rights was signed by 189 governments in 1995, many challenges remain, including a motherhood pay gap.

September 2013

  1. Interview with Maria Helena André, Director of ACTRAV

    30 September 2013

    The recently appointed Director of the Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV), Ms Maria Helena André wants to strengthen her department’s services for ILO’s worker constituents. A trade unionist and Portugal’s former Minister of Labour and Social Solidarity (2009-2011), Ms André talks here about gender equality within the trade union movement and shares her thoughts about the theme of the World Day for Decent Work on 7th October.

March 2012

  1. Governing Body: the Director-General meets the Workers' Group

    26 March 2012

    ILO Director-General Juan Somavia met the Workers’ Group of the Governing Body. During the meeting, he emphasized that this would be the last Governing Body session that he would attend in the capacity of Director-General.

  2. International Women’s Day: The IUF Calls for Strengthening Decent Work in Agriculture to Protect Women’s Rights

    08 March 2012

    The coordinator for global agriculture at the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), Ms Sue Longley, stressed the need to strengthen decent work in agriculture to protect women’s rights.

October 2005

  1. Many workers suffer from hunger and poverty - FAO/ILO/IUF report

    06 October 2005

    Many of the 450 million agricultural workers live in dire conditions

July 2004

  1. India: Hope Dawns as Women Beat Poverty

    01 July 2004

    In the villages of India, women are organizing against poverty. With the backing of a team from the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV)hundreds of "self-help groups" have been set up. These groups now ensure a trade union presence in some of the most remote areas of southern India.

October 2003

  1. World Food Day 16 October 2003: The ILO and decent work in agriculture

    16 October 2003

    Today,the number of people working in agriculture is put at more than 1.3 billion. They make up half of the world's active population.They feed the world, but what is their fate Unenviable,according to a whole series of first-hand accounts at the symposium on decent work in agriculture, held recently under the auspices of the International Labour Organization in Geneva.