Trade union demands for the 70th session of the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women (CSW70): ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR WOMEN IN THE WORLD OF WORK
- ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR WOMEN SUSTAINS PEACE AND DEMOCRACY
- ACCESS TO JUSTICE IS A DIRECT MEANS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF WOMEN’S LABOUR RIGHTS
- ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR WOMEN STARTS WITH DECENT WORK
Siobhan Vipond, Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and Jotika Sharma, Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC)
This interview brings together Siobhan Vipond from the Canadian Labour Congress and Jotika Sharma from the Fiji Trades Union Congress to discuss how trade unions are advancing women workers’ access to justice in very different national contexts. They explore concrete union victories — from pay equity and flight attendants’ struggles in Canada, to Fiji’s ratification and implementation of ILO Convention 190 on violence and harassment. The conversation highlights the importance of women’s leadership, collective bargaining, migrant worker protection, and union education in empowering women at work.
Cyrene Waern, LO Sweden
Cyrene Waern explains that gender-based violence is not only a personal tragedy but also a workplace and trade union issue. She stresses that unions have a responsibility to break the silence, support affected women, and create safe spaces to discuss abuse that often goes unreported.
Nikki Pound, Trades Union Congress (TUC)
Nikki Pound explains how the UK’s new Employment Rights Act — won through trade union campaigning — strengthens workers’ rights and improves access to justice for women workers, including banning zero-hours contracts, enhancing maternity protections, advancing equality action plans, and tackling workplace harassment.
Lola Navarro, Unión General de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores (UGT)
Lola Navarro explica que, para la UGT, el feminismo se traduce en el reparto de la riqueza y en integrar la perspectiva de género en el diálogo social y la negociación colectiva. Destaca cómo los sindicatos negocian subidas salariales, planes de igualdad, permisos retribuidos y mejoras en salud laboral para reducir la brecha salarial y mejorar las condiciones de las trabajadoras.
Gwyniver Ann Mathay, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP)
Gwyniver Ann Mathay, explains how trade union advocacy in the Philippines has translated women workers’ demands into concrete legislation. She highlights TUCP’s role in expanding paid maternity leave, advancing fair and predictable wage mechanisms, and pushing for protection against workplace violence through the ratification of ILO Convention 190.
Anadele Coetzee, Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA)
Anadele Coetzee explains how FEDUSA has been central to advancing protection against gender-based violence and harassment in South Africa following the ratification of ILO Convention 190. She highlights the union’s role in strengthening legislative frameworks, promoting awareness and training, and ensuring that implementation and monitoring mechanisms are in place to protect vulnerable workers.
Avital Shapira, General Federation of Labour in Israel (HISTADRUT)
Avital Shapira explains that Na’amat, the women’s movement within Histadrut, tackles gender-based violence and harassment through awareness, collective bargaining and direct support. They organise workshops and training so women understand their legal rights, push for anti-harassment provisions in collective agreements, and run campaigns — including on digital abuse — to confront emerging risks.
Chow Hang-tung is a Hong Kong human rights lawyer turned activist who became a leading figure in the Hong Kong Alliance, known for organising annual Tiananmen Square commemorations. Following the imposition of the National Security Law, these peaceful acts of remembrance were criminalised. Since September 2021, she has been detained—alongside fellow activist Lee Cheuk-yan—on charges of “inciting subversion of state power,” simply for advocating truth and memory about the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. After more than four years in detention without bail, their trial is set for January 2026, and they face up to 10 years in prison.
It appears my career as a barrister must come to a temporary pause. Just as I said before leaving, in the coming years, even though I can’t be with you physically, I can still be rebellious with words. This is a kind of literary inquisition. In such kind of era, words may be a kind of weapon that is nothing less powerful than demonstrations. Chow Hang-tung, Honk Kong Alliance
Towards a Gender-Just Economy: Care as a Human Right and a Global Public Good
Care must be recognised as a human right and a public good, not a private responsibility. This requires strong public investment in care systems, decent work and labour rights for care workers, and policies that redistribute unpaid care work. It is also essential to resist political backlash, strengthen collective action, and place care at the centre of gender equality and economic justice. Paola Simonetti, ITUC
Ford Foundation Social Justice Center in New York
Trade unions are making a real difference — advancing women workers’ access to justice, rights, and dignity at work. Together, we organize, we advocate, we win.
CSW70: Decent work recognized as essential for women’s access to justice
The ITUC, together with trade unions around the world, welcomes the inclusion of the Decent Work Agenda in the Agreed Conclusions of the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) - a significant achievement, considering how the negotiations began, with no mention of the world of work. The focus of this year’s CSW was access to justice for women and girls. The Agreed Conclusions include several commitments in line with trade union demands:
- Right to work and rights at work: the text recommends fulfilling the obligations arising from relevant conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), addressing violence and harassment in the workplace, and tackling the gender pay gap. It also includes enforcing labour rights, including the right to organise and collective bargaining, the transition from informal to formal, decent work, and the right to redress and justice for victims of labour rights violations.
- Care economy: UN Member States commit to invest in the care economy and strengthen care and support systems, by recognizing, reducing and redistributing women’s disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work.
- Trade unions are recognized as key promoters of access to justice for women.
- Gender-responsive justice systems: the text calls for adequate financing of policies on access to justice, gender balance at all levels of public governance and justice systems, capacity building for all justice system professionals and strengthened institutional capacity to mainstream a gender perspective in laws and policies, including labour inspection.
- Capacity building: commitments are made around legal literacy for women, free legal aid and investments in education, lifelong learning and vocational training for women and girls.
- Call for systemic change: the text recognises multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, as well as structural and systemic barriers, as major impediments to gender equality.
However, during the negotiations several paragraphs of the Conclusions were weakened by adding references to implementation as “subject to national law”, especially in relation to girls’ rights. Access to justice in relation to sexual and reproductive health and rights also proved highly contentious. For the first time at CSW the Agreed Conclusions were put to a vote and adopted with only one vote against - the United States, which tabled a separate resolution that was not adopted questioning the very concept of “gender equality”. The ITUC and its affiliates will continue to hold governments to account to ensure these commitments are implemented in practice and lead to tangible improvements in access to justice for women in the world of work.
Access to justice for women sustains peace and democracy. We must dismantle structural barriers faced by women at work and in society, and trade unions will be at the forefront of this effort. Luc Triangle, ITUC General Secretary