Dear Editor,

Trade Unions are playing a very big and important role in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases throughout the world; a fight in the workplace as well as outside the workplace.

I think we all know the statistics: Forty million people in the world today living with HIV; 5 million people with new infections which occurred in 2006 and 3 million deaths from HIV/AIDS in 2006. All those numbers are rising inexorably in every country around the world, with very few exceptions. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria was created to finance the counter -attack, not only against HIV/AIDS but also against TB and malaria.

Today already the Global Fund is supporting 300 programmes in 130 countries and the value of those programmes is US$8 billion.

Prevention is scaling up and treatment is beginning to become more widely available. But we have a long and difficult road ahead of us and a long journey to travel together before we begin to contain the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. The role of the trade unions and their members, I believe, is critical. I would like to congratulate the trade union movement for its leadership in this area and for focusing attention on the challenge of HIV/AIDS. But I believe there is much more that we can do. Let me make four suggestions.

First, mobilize to demand and to support workplace programmes of prevention and treatment. Some companies in our country have such programmes in place for their workforce and their families. Some of those programmes are exemplary, but the vast majority of companies do not have such programmes. There is long way to go and I would call on the trade union movement to both demand and support the development of workplace programmes.

Secondly, I would encourage trade unions to press for membership of the Country Co-ordinating Mechanisms, the CCMs. 130 countries have a relationship with the Global Fund. Our relationship is not with government, it is with CCMs which multi-sectoral stakeholder bodies created in order to interact with the fund and to channel global fund investments. I may be wrong, but I am aware of no trade union that is a member of any CCM in countries today. Guyana is the only country in which trade unions are members of CCM.

Thirdly and partly through this membership of the CCM, please seek finance from the global fund in order to expand and develop the work that we do and the work we can do more of in the future among our own members.

Fourthly, trade unions must ensure that national legislation prevents and penalizes discrimination on the grounds of HIV status. Such legislation should also encourage employers to adopt policies for the management of HIV/AIDS in the workplace, in collaboration with trade unions. At the centre of such workplace policies should be measures to combat discrimination, to encourage awareness and to provide treatment for workers across all occupations. We know that this is a priority business for unions because three quarters of the people living with AIDS go to work everyday.

Yours faithfully,

Sherwood Clarke

Trade Unionist