Published: 25 Oct 2024
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)
25 October 2024
Media Release
Paddy Crumlin reelected ITF President at 2024 Congress in Marrakech
For the first time in the ITF’s history, the Global Congress was held in the Arab World region, bringing together thousands of transport workers and trade union leaders, the 46th Congress was held in Marrakech, Morocco, during October 2024.
The conference re-elected MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin as ITF President and as Chair of the Dockers Section, roles he has held for over 14 years.
Stephen Cotton was reelected ITF General Secretary and Dave Heindel, President of the Seafarers International Union of North America was reelected Chair of the Seafarers Section, which he has served as since 2010.
The continuity of leadership at the ITF ensures experience, consistency and long term strategic planning will continue to define the campaigns and organising efforts of the global transport workers' union. This will be a vital factor during biennial International Bargaining Forum negotiations that are due to commence opposite international shipowners.
Delegates to Congress united to push forward a series of critical motions addressing equality, sustainability, and workers' rights. Each motion reinforced the global labour movement’s commitment to fighting for justice and fairness across the transport sector.
Meryem Halouani (UMT), who moved the Executive Board motion ‘Equality for Transport Workers’ called on transport workers to rally behind the cause of equality, declaring, "Our unity is our strong weapon".
Mariano Moreno (Argentina) spoke of the devastating impact of environmental destruction on workers in the Global South, and Kavan Gayle (BITU, Jamaica) delivered a call for immediate action: "We must act now to build a future where transport serves both people and the planet."
The ongoing war between Palestine and Israel was addressed with a powerful call for peace and solidarity. ITF President and National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, Paddy Crumlin underscored the ITF's long-standing commitment to justice and peace.
“This is an historic moment in the history of the ITF,” he said. “We have a long history of committing to justice, to a two-state solution, and to the establishment of a sovereign state of Palestine.”
Crumlin reaffirmed the federation’s resolve to stand with workers on both sides of the conflict, emphasising the need for humanitarian corridors and urging a unified response from ITF affiliates and the global labour movement.
The motion was carried by an overwhelming majority, showing the Congress’s commitment to peace and justice.
Finally, delegates reaffirmed their commitment to defending transport workers’ rights, particularly the right to strike.
Ismo Kokko from AKT, Finland, highlighted how far-right forces and conservative governments are actively undermining workers’ rights across Europe.
"In Finland, the far-right came in second place, and together with the conservatives, they are rewriting our labour laws," he said, describing how new legislation threatens the right to strike and weakens social protections.
The Congress made clear that defending the right to strike is critical to the survival of workers' rights everywhere, reaffirming the ITF’s role in leading this fight on the global stage.
Women delegates to Congress united to reaffirm their message that women belong: in transport, in unions, in decision-making, and in leadership.
The Congress celebrated the critical milestone of 25 years since the establishment of the ITF Women Transport Workers’ Committee – a vital moment underscoring the progress, challenges, and renewed commitment to promote and advance the rights of women transport workers globally. And as we move forward to the next 25 years, and beyond, to face new challenges and build on the strong foundations already built by women transport workers.
“Women transport workers are an incredible force globally, and yet they face systemic exclusion, discrimination, violence and lack of respect in the workplace and wider community” said Diana Holland, who has chaired the Committee since its inception.
Newly elected chair Meryam Halouani, UMT, Morocco said: “We have come a long way. In the last 25 years women transport workers everywhere committed themselves to change, to create more space for themselves and for other women. To set examples of extra ordinary leadership, we worked hard to be seen and to be engaged in decision-making spaces with employers and governments, but we still have a long way to go for our voices to resonate within our trade unions.
“Through our solidarity and unity we will be able to achieve great things. To work seriously to defend our rights and promote the position of women in decision-making.”
Mich-Elle Myers, MUA, Australia, Jennifer Murray, Unifor, Canada and Anika Manavi, SYNTRAPAL, Togo were elected Vice Chairs.
The six demands being debated at the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) Congress are the core work and focus of the ITF Dockers’ Section – this is the central message agreed and delivered by dockers at the ITF Congress in Marrakech.
The challenges faced by dockers around the world mirror the ITF’s emerging focus on accountability, equality, rights, safety, sustainability and the future of work – vital, interlinking work areas that can help deliver real change to the lives and livelihoods of all transport workers.
Dockers’ Section Chair, Paddy Crumlin, said: “It was dockworkers and seafarers who founded the ITF. Dockworkers know that we’ve always been on the receiving end – they use anything they can to divide us.
“Dockers expect to have the decency and dignity we deserve for the work we do, whether it’s our rights, our dignity, not living in poverty, or not having to face injury and death on the job.”
The Section’s focus on the six demands is often overlapping and includes specific challenges faced by dockers in automation, occupational safety and health, and equality.
As with many ITF sections, supply chain accountability – holding corporations at the top of supply chains to account for rights abuses within them – is a cross-cutting area of work as the corporate giants of transport and logistics increasingly integrate their supply chains and operations as they buy up various modes of transport. And with their long track record of solidarity and struggle everywhere, dockers are braced for the vital role they will play over the next five years.
Navigating a positive way forward for seafarers was at the heart of plans confirmed at the Seafarers’ Section conference in Marrakech - with the urgent need for a just transition flagged as a catalyst for change.
Improving seafarers’ conditions is a long-established and successful core agenda of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and its affiliated maritime unions – and delegates confirmed it will remain central to the ITF’s work over the next five-year plan for the Seafarers’ Section.
“We will continue to build a future in which seafarers are recognised, valued, respected, protected,” said ITF Seafarers Section Chair, David Heindel. “Let there be no doubt that the ITF and all its affiliated unions will always stand shoulder to shoulder with unjustly treated seafarers, wherever they may be and whatever they may be facing.”
A future concern for seafarer safety, the handling of potentially dangerous new fuels, is already being addressed by the ITF in collaboration with industry and international organisation partners – a mutually beneficial collaboration only enhanced through joint work during the pandemic. As it always has, the Seafarers’ Section agreed in Marrakech that it must continue to ensure that its strategy for change to 2029 spans advocacy on regulation, holding states and shipowners to account, and building awareness among seafarers of their rights.
Motions passed at the Conference include a commitment for the Section to build a new, comprehensive, strategy to support and safeguard Ukraine’s seafarers – and railway workers – including prioritising them in the pilot for training under the Maritime Just Transition Taskforce. The adoption of the motion, introduced by Oleg Grygoriuk of the Maritime Transport Workers’ Trade Union of Ukraine (MTWTU), was followed by a rousing standing ovation.
The Conference also welcomed the Australian Government’s commitment to establish an ‘Australian Strategic Fleet’ which will help rebuild an Australian-flagged and crewed merchant fleet, which in turn expands the ITF maritime departments’ work on defending national shipping and cabotage.
The ‘Marrakech Policy’, adopted at the International Transport Workers’ Federation’s (ITF) Joint Seafarers’ and Dockers’ Conference, now forms the governing framework for the global union’s campaigning work on Flags of Convenience (FOC).
The policy is the culmination of five years’ work by union representatives from ITF maritime affiliates to examine, plan and develop a new strategy in line with the shifting reality faced by seafarers since 2010 – when the preceding Mexico City Policy was adopted at the ITF’s 42nd Congress in Mexico City.
The Marrakech Policy sets out the minimum conditions the ITF and its affiliated unions will accept on FOC merchant ships, incorporating the new understanding of the critical importance of global supply chains that emerged out of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the central role for shipping and seafarers in combatting climate change through a just transition.
The Marrakech Policy will now form the baseline for the ITF’s Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA), which set the wages and working conditions for crews on FOC vessels, irrespective of nationality.
Dockers’ Section Chair and Co-Chair of the ITF’s Fair Practices Committee, Paddy Crumlin, emphasised the importance of this.
“For dockers, the inclusion of the Non-Seafarers’ Work Clause in the CBAs isn’t just about job security, it’s about safety – both for dockers and for seafarers,” he said.
“Companies are trying to cut corners, making seafarers do lashing, putting them at serious risk. We’ve fought against this before, and we’ll continue to fight against any shipowner who puts seafarers’ lives in danger.”
“The attacks on our rights aren’t going away, but neither are we,” said Crumlin. “We’re dockers. We’re seafarers. We move the world, and it’s time companies recognise that they can’t exploit us without consequences.
‘Whether it’s fighting abandonment or defending dockers’ jobs, we stand united.”
ENDS
