CTU Representation At WSSD
MEDIA ADVISORY 26 August 2002 CTU Representation At World Summit on Sustainable Development
The Council of Trade Unions is respresented at WSSD by Richard Wagstaff, National Secretary of the PSA, who is part of
the New Zealand Government delegation.
Richard can be contacted during the Summit through Lyndy McIntyre, CTU Communications Person (see contact details
below).
Richard will be part of the NZ team and as such will be associated with the particular issues highlighted by the NZ
Government.
On behalf of the CTU, Richard will also be promoting the goals of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
(ICFTU) at the Summit.
The international union movement will lobby to convince governments and the international community of the link between
decent jobs, safety at the workplace and the environment.
The unions’ perspective at the Johannesburg Summit is that the social, economic and environmental dimensions are
inseparable. Unions have a role to play in these sectors and in all policies that will be defined in Johannesburg in
matters of sustainable development.
The ICFTU has produced a paper for the Summit called "For Sustainable Work - Why the Workplace is Essential in
Sustainable Development.”
This document also refers to ILO (International Labor Organisation) statistics, which show that every day more than 5000
people die from work place related accidents. During the ten days of the Earth Summit 50, 000 people will die from such
accidents.
The NZCTU has recently released a new publication called ‘Unions, Innovation and Sustainable Development’.
ENDS