The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) was born in 2006 from the coalescence of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL). It represents about 168 million workers that belong to 311 trade union organisations from 156 countries.
Its origin is a response from the international trade union action in the face of the new world scenery, denoted by the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the globalisation leaded by neo-liberal policies that establish the free market, which submerged countries into unemployement, poverty and exclusion.
ITUC proposes to define new claiming contents, management plans and instruments with the purpose of avoiding porverty, unemployement and exclusion through a unitary and global trade-union response that redirects globalisation towards solidarity, sustainable development, equitable redistribution of richness and social cohesion.
For its functioning, ITUC is ruled by world congresses that are held every four years, a General Council, and an Executive Agency. It has regional organisations: The Regional Organisation for Asia-Pacific (ITUC-AP), The African Regional Organisation (ITUC-AFRICA) and The Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) and collaborates with the European Trade Union Confederation, included through the Pan European Regional Council, created on March 2007.
The ITUC maintains close relationships with International Trade Union Federations and with the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OCDE (TUAC), and work together within the Council of Global Unions.