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From 12 to 14 December, more than 300 trade union representatives from European construction, building materials, wood and forestry trade unions met in Helsinki, Finland, for the 14th EFBWW Congress. During the three-day event, participants discussed the main achievements of the last four years, elected the new leadership and set the priorities for the next Congress period.
Johan Lindholm (Byggnads, Sweden) was re-elected as EFBWW president and Tom Deleu (Belgium) as General Secretary. Johan Lindholm: “We stand united and when we stand united nothing can stop us. We have a clear voice both at European and national level. We stand united to fight against exploitation of our members. We need to make the voices of our members heard: only then, will they feel safe”.
Tom Deleu: “We already look forward to the next European elections, which will determine the political and democratic context of the coming years and in which we will develop our work. We will never work with the far-right. We support fair mobility, we support fair migration, fair treatment of mobile and migrant workers and a fair Internal Market.”
Together with Nikolaj Villumsen (MEP The Left, DK), we celebrated our victory regarding a better protection of construction workers against asbestos. This was one of the major EFBWW battles in the past congress period and we won!
During the Congress, the EFBWW presented its activity report, highlighting its main achievements, and set the priorities for the next Congress period, namely equal treatment and fair mobility, rebuilding of Ukraine, gender equality and strengthening trade unions.
Before the opening of the General Assembly, on 12 December, the EFBWW launched the practical manual for negotiators of collective bargaining agreements (CBA), including a toolbox with good practices on how to integrate gender aspects in CBA’s.
All the information about the General Assembly and the different side events is available on the Congress webpage.