The year in summary

We are happy to present our annual report 2024.

Photo: Ruud van den Bergh (right) and Joop van Oord (left) during a safety training session for shipbreakers in India.

Cooperation

The year 2024 highlighted several strong examples of cooperation with our partners at many levels. In addition to strengthening trade unions within their companies and sectors, in cooperation with our partners, we raised our policy influence to a higher level by conducting more research and expanding our knowledge and lobbying capacity. A good example of this is the Hong Kong Convention for safe and responsible shipbreaking. Concrete improvements for workers on the shipbreaking beaches and the ratification of the convention by 15 of the most important countries were a few projects on which we collaborated. Every partner played a role in the process: Mondiaal FNV, the global trade union confederation IndustriALL, and the local trade unions in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Read more about it in ‘An end to the rust race’.

Pesticide use by workers

The intercontinental collaborative network International Palm Oil Workers United (IPOWU) is also committed to strengthening trade unions at different levels. In 2024, participants from four continents met in Colombia to share experiences, exchange ideas, and work together. We also commissioned an investigation into the use of agrochemicals on the palm oil plantations, the outcome of which was no surprise. Workers on many palm oil plantations are insufficiently protected, with serious consequences for their health. Based on these findings, the network took action at multiple levels, which to some extent has already led to concrete improvements. The investigation was also discussed with certification body Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and several palm-oil-processing companies in the Netherlands.

HRDD training

In 2024, we began training our partners in the field of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD). This concept means that companies examine whether their activities have a negative impact on human rights and address these risks throughout their supply chain. This cannot be achieved without trade unions, which, after all, are in direct contact with the workers.  These unique, proactive training sessions proved to be extremely valuable for our partners’ trade union work. You can read their responses to the training in the Annual Stories.

FNV solidarity

I would also like to highlight our December campaign. FNV colleagues and active trade unionists (kaderleden) could choose between receiving a Christmas hamper or donating the equivalent amount of money to one of our partners. Together they donated over 29,000 euros to our partner Public Services International (PSI), the international trade union federation in the public sector, which is using the funds to support primary relief workers in war zones. It was a remarkable act of international solidarity by the FNV family!

Highlights

This is only a small selection of the topics we are showcasing. In this annual report, we proudly present many more examples of both small and significant achievements from our field of work. These are just highlights, because we would rather share every detail of the courageous and dedicated work our trade union colleagues carry out. Fortunately, for even more on this topic, we can also refer you to our website: www.mondiaalfnv.nl.

Thanking our partners and donors

Finally, we would like to thank our partners and donors who supported our work over the past year. We will continue to commit to the rights of workers all over the world, and we look forward to continuing our work in the future.

We hope you will enjoy reading this annual report!

Karen Brouwer
Director Mondiaal FNV