From June 25-27, the IWA Plenary and Extraordinary Congress took place. Due to government-imposed travel restrictions, it could not take place in Slovakia, as originally planned, but was conducted online. The positive side of this was that around 80 delegates and observers from around the globe took part and there was no need for anybody to deal with discriminatory visa politics.

The main news was that two Friend organizations – ULET from Colombia and WAS from Austria – decided to become Sections of the IWA. We also welcomed new organizations from Pakistan (WSI) and the Phillipines (MK) as Friends. The Extraordinary Congress also formally recognized that Solidaridad Obrera, which recently took steps to federate, is the continuation of our Friends of the IWA in Chile.

The Plenary dealt with some questions of internal organization but also with issues such as the upcoming centenary of the IWA. A number of events are being planned in different cities and a centenary Congress will take place in Spain.

The IWA also decided to repeat the international actions against unpaid wages that were also held in 2020 but were somewhat limited in scope due to the COViD-19 pandemic.

There was also a discussion on workplace organizer training that a few of our Sections carry out and others have participated in. A couple of Sections said that they would be holding new sessions this year.

The Plenary approved proposals for publications related to the IWA for the upcoming centenary which will be part of a publishing initiative approved at the 2019 Congress. The Plenary also approved the creation of a working group that will focus on the climate crisis.

We are looking forward to seeing the work of the IWA develop and to the events of our Centenary.