Delegates heard messages of solidarity from labor leaders across the world on the final day of the 41st IBEW International Convention.
Representatives from Australia, Ireland, Italy and Sweden took to the stage and shared their thoughts on the importance of working together and continuing to foster the strong relationships between their unions and the IBEW.
Amedeo Testa, the national secretary general of the Federation of Italian Electricity Company Workers, recounted the long history his union has with the IBEW, including the role the IBEW played in creating Italy’s trade unions.
Testa also told the delegates about a group of New York City Local 3 members who traveled to Italy to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and pay respects at a memorial in Padua, home to the largest 9/11 memorial outside the United States.
The IBEW and the Federation of Italian Electricity Company Workers have also worked together on Electrical Workers Without Borders projects.
“This is what international trade union solidarity means to us: working together, helping one another and never leaving anyone behind,” Testa said.
Urban Petterson, president of the Swedish Electricians Union, spoke about how international solidarity is more important now than ever.
“Unions must cooperate across borders, just as companies do,” he said. “We must share knowledge, support organizing efforts and defend workers’ rights wherever they are threatened. No worker should be exploited so that a corporation can make larger profits.”
Michael Wright, secretary of Australia’s Electrical Trades Union, told the delegates that “both of our countries are undergoing two industrial revolutions at the same time.”
“Our job is to turn that work into good, union jobs,” he said, adding that the future has never been brighter for both his union and the IBEW.
Wright thanked IBEW members for their financial support and in-person help as Australians recovered from devastating wildfires in 2019-20.
“That support was not just generous,” he said. “It was a reminder of what union solidarity means.”
Paddy Kavanagh, general secretary of Ireland’s Connect Trade Union, noted that trade unions were formed in Ireland and by many immigrants to the U.S. to fight back against corrupt monarchies and government tyranny.
“Now, we have a new form of royalty,” Kavanagh said. “Billionaires, trillionaires, with resources greater than some nations on the planet, who believe in a new age of domination by elites and oligarchs.”
That makes the trade union movement more important now than at any time during the last century, he said.
“We must stand up against this,” he said. “The best way to do it is to fight harder, continue to struggle, and ensure our principles of fairness, equality, respect and the building of a just society.”
Kavanagh, who is retiring in November, said he was proud of the closer bonds built between the IBEW and his union during his 10-year tenure, beginning with an IBEW-sponsored training session that Connect members attended in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 2016.
