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2 June, 2008
Twenty delegates from ten nations attended meetings in early May in Lomé, Togo, intended to lay the groundwork for dissolution of the former World Federation of Industry Workers’ (WFIW’s) Pan African Federation of Industry Workers into the ICEM’s Sub-Saharan African Region.
Resolutions were passed to that effect, and full integration of the two regional structures will occur at next week’s ICEM regional meeting in Accra, Ghana. The meeting was attended by Italo Rodomonti, former WFIW General Secretary and ICEM Vice President, and Rayford Mbulu, ICEM’s Sub-Saharan African Region Chairman, who also is President of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia.
Togo
Among some of the resolutions passed includes a recommendation to establish networks within the ICEM region to counter the power of multinationals, and one asking the ICEM region to encourage synergy within countries between former WFIW trade unions and ICEM affiliates. Also, a recommendation was passed requesting observer status for the former WFIW regional unions on the ICEM’s Presidium, Executive Committee, and Sub-Saharan African Regional Women’s Committee.
Former WFIW delegates attending the meetings came from Togo, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Senegal, Sierra Leon, Morocco, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Rodomonti from Belgium and Jan Voets from ACV Hout en Bouw, also
of Belgium.