Brussels, 20/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Trade Union Federation for Textiles, Clothing and Leathers (FSE: THC) held, last 2 to 4 April in Toledo, its 3rd Congress on the theme "Textiles, Leathers, Clothing and Shoes: necessary jobs in a united Europe", with the participation of some 170 delegates from 27 countries and representatives from the European Commission, the Spanish administrations, the employers and European trade unions, as well as the ILO. The aim mainly being to gather the delegate's courage by explaining to them that there is no fatality in the present decline of the textile and clothing sector, and also to send to the European Commission the message according to which the FSE: THC admits the dropping of low quality textiles such as the manufacturing of T-shirts (which will only take place in China and Bangladesh), but feels that it is necessary to develop high quality and high technology textiles, and re-balancing of trade, explains the Secretary General of the FSE: THC, Patrick Itschert. Bringing the support of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) its Deputy Secretary General Jean Lapeyer added: the EU is far more than a simple trading area. The Union has a historic perspective to unify the European continent through the enlargement process, to create an area (…) of economic and social progress".
The Congress unanimously adopted the 2001-2005 action programme from the FSE: THC, by underlining, in particular, the need to progress faster in the building of a true European textile-clothing-leather (THC) trade unionism. The newly elected President, the Italian trade unionist Valeria Fedeli, insisted over the re-launching of the sectors image, the opening of external markets to European THC products, labelling and certification of THC products, the fight against undeclared work, the enhancing of women's rights and the role of trade unions.
Finally, the Congress voted over an emergency motion condemning the Sara Lee Branded Apparel Europe company for further redundancies, which it will undertake and for failure to respect the Directive on European works councils.