CUPE is deeply committed to the global labour movement and to international solidarity. Building relationships with workers and community allies around the world strengthens our collective fight for human and labour rights, decent work, strong public services and peace. In 2018-2019, we continued to learn from and support movements that are at the heart of the global struggle for economic and social justice.
This year, we continued to work in solidarity with workers and community allies in many countries and strengthened long-term partnerships through our Global Justice Fund. And we deepened our critical understanding of Canada’s role in the world.
We do this work because we know solidarity is vital. It’s our most powerful tool to build a better world, and it’s needed more than ever. Inequality and injustice threaten to divide us. We must unite in the face of a rising tide of fear, racism and hate in Canada and around the world.
Peoples’ movements around the world, including the labour movement, are facing growing threats. Right-wing governments and corporations are stepping up suppression of movements that seek to build a better world by redistributing wealth and funding public services through fair taxation, protecting land and labour rights, and promoting environmental and social justice.
International solidarity gives us a critical lens to understand the world around us. It helps us understand the bigger picture as it relates to our day-to-day union work at the bargaining table, defending public services and taking political action. Our fight against growing corporate power and inequality goes hand-in-hand with protecting workers’ rights and public services – in Canada and internationally. The powerful economic, corporate and political forces behind right-wing governments are global, and our response must be as well.
Until all of us are free, none of us are free.
