On the eve of Labour Day the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) Michael An­nisette has said the time for so­cial jus­tice is now.

An­nisette is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ing “Labour” at the 108th Ses­sion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Con­fer­ence be­ing held in Gene­va, Switzer­land, from June 10 – 21, 2019. He forms part of the Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion, com­pris­ing the Gov­ern­ment, Em­ploy­er and Labour.

In a re­lease on Mon­day, An­nisette echoed the sen­ti­ments of the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion (ILO) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Gus Ry­der, who said to thou­sands of con­fer­ence del­e­gates: “the un­cer­tain­ties and in­se­cu­ri­ties of our time…un­der­line just how fun­da­men­tal the achieve­ment of so­cial jus­tice is to sta­bil­i­ty and to peace, and how vi­tal ac­cess to de­cent work is to the ad­vance­ment of hu­man well-be­ing”.

An­nisette said the sup­ports Ry­der's de­c­la­ra­tion that it was time “to tell the world that we have the con­fi­dence, the com­mon pur­pose, the will and the means”, to con­tin­ue mak­ing so­cial jus­tice a top pri­or­i­ty.”

The Cen­te­nary ses­sion of the ILC, known as the “world par­lia­ment of labour” be­gan in Gene­va on June 10 and T&T will on­ly be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the sec­ond half of the Con­fer­ence.

The agen­da of the 108th ses­sion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Con­fer­ence will cov­er the­mat­ic de­bates and events con­nect­ed to the fu­ture of work, in­clud­ing var­i­ous cen­te­nary ini­tia­tives. They are al­so dis­cussing how to over­come vi­o­lence and ha­rass­ment at the work­place with a view to the adop­tion of a new in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment.

At the con­fer­ence, it was said that this is “the most pro­found and trans­for­ma­tive process of the change in the world of work that it has ever seen”. This is be­cause of the rapid changes oc­cur­ring due to dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion.

An­nisette ex­pressed: “Since the dig­i­tal econ­o­my op­er­ates in a world with­out bor­der, more than ever, in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions over­all must play a vi­tal role in shap­ing the fu­ture of work we want.”

He said: “a se­ries of The­mat­ic Fo­rums and events con­nect­ed to the fu­ture of work has been or­ga­nized to pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for de­bate and shar­ing in­spir­ing, thought-pro­vok­ing per­spec­tives on the fu­ture of the world of work.”

An­nisette said that these fo­rums and events will pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty to stim­u­late de­bate among Con­fer­ence par­tic­i­pants, heads of in­ter­na­tion­al or­ga­ni­za­tions, key fig­ures from busi­ness and in­dus­try and from trade unions, pol­i­cy-mak­ers, glob­al ex­perts, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il so­ci­ety and acad­e­mia, and young peo­ple with in­spir­ing, thought-pro­vok­ing per­spec­tives on the fu­ture of the work­place.