Speech by FEDUSA President Godfrey Selematsela to the 14th BRICS Trade Union Forum 23 April, 2025 − Brasilia, Brazil
Chairperson, comrades, distinguished delegates, and fellow trade unionists, it is with great humility and a deep sense of duty that I address you today at this critical juncture in our collective journey.
The BRICS Trade Union Forum convenes under a theme that speaks not only to the challenges of our time but to the immense possibilities that lie ahead if we act with courage, clarity, and unity of purpose.
Strengthening trade union cooperation and inclusive global governance is not a technical imperative, it is a political necessity. It is a call for organised labour to rise above national silos, confront systemic inequities, and help forge a world order in which the dignity of workers is upheld not as a favour but as a foundational principle of development.
We meet against the backdrop of profound transformations in the global political economy, escalating geopolitical tensions, widening inequality, ecological breakdown, and a digital revolution that is reshaping the nature of work and the terms of social citizenship. In the midst of these shifts, the BRICS partnership has emerged as a counterweight to unipolar dominance and neoliberal orthodoxy. Yet its progressive potential will remain unrealised unless workers and their organisations are empowered as co-architects of its agenda.
Our first task, therefore, is to assert the primacy of labour rights and democratic participation in the evolving BRICS architecture. Trade unions must not be relegated to the margins of policy-making, nor treated as mere stakeholders to be consulted at the eleventh hour. We must insist on institutionalised mechanisms for worker representation in all BRICS platforms, whether in the New Development Bank, the BRICS Business Council, or emerging trade and industrial policy forums. Our input must be informed by the lived realities of our members, from the shop floors of São Paulo to the informal settlements of Johannesburg, from the rural communities of India to the industrial heartlands of China and the innovation corridors of Russia.
These voices are indispensable to any credible vision of inclusive global governance. But solidarity must begin at home, within our own movements. Cooperation among BRICS trade unions must evolve beyond episodic meetings and declarations. We need deep, programmatic collaboration rooted in shared values and struggles. This means coordinated campaigns against labour flexibilisation and union repression; joint research on the impact of technological disruptions; knowledge exchanges on effective organising strategies in the informal economy; and solidarity in defending unions under threat in any one of our countries. We must also develop sectoral alliances in key industries that transcend national boundaries and reflect the transnational nature of capital.
Our cooperation must be intersectional, grounded in a feminist, anti-racist, and youth-oriented ethic that challenges patriarchy, exclusion, and generational marginalisation both within our societies and within our organisations. There can be no inclusive governance without inclusion at the level of our own movement. As we advocate for a new multilateralism, we must confront the structural imbalances that have long defined global governance. The institutions that shape trade, finance, and development continue to prioritise profit over people, stability over justice, and technocracy over democracy.
As BRICS trade unions, we must champion a new global social contract that centres decent work, climate justice, and redistributive development. We must engage with international bodies, not as passive recipients of global policy, but as active agents demanding reform, transparency, and genuine accountability. The digital and green transitions present both risks and opportunities. Without our intervention, they will entrench inequality and deepen exclusion. But with proactive strategies, worker education, and robust social dialogue, they can serve as platforms for a new development model that places people and planet before profit.
The just transition must be more than a slogan, it must be a lived reality for workers and communities on the frontlines of industrial change. We call for a binding commitment from BRICS governments to ensure that the digital and green economies do not become new sites of exploitation, but instead become engines of decent, secure, and meaningful employment. In advancing South-South solidarity, we must remain vigilant against the replication of old hierarchies and extractive logics.
The BRICS vision must not mirror the asymmetries it claims to oppose. Instead, it should champion democratic multilateralism, human rights, ecological sustainability, and economic sovereignty for the Global South. Trade unions have a critical role to play in ensuring this trajectory, by holding our own states accountable, by forging alliances with civil society, and by building mass-based power from below.
Let this forum signal a new chapter in our movement, one of bold ideas, militant unity, and transnational solidarity. Let us build a future in which the voices of workers are not simply heard but decisively shape the course of history. The task is urgent, the path is difficult, but the moment is ours.
I thank you.