Commonwealth Trade Union Group
The Commonwealth Trade Union Group is a London-based international alliance of trade union in the Commonwealth countries. It was previously known as the Commonwealth Trade Union Council. As of 2007, the combined membership of CTUG affiliates reached 30 million.
The decision to set up the CTUC was taken at the Commonwealth Trade Union Conference, held in June 1979. In November 1979 a number of trade unions of the Commonwealth agreed to a set of proposals issued by a special working party launched at the June 1979 conference. The official founding of CTUC took place in March 1980, with Canadian Labour Congress president Dennis McDermott as the CTUC chairman and Carl Wright as the director of the organization. The stated goal of the CTUC was to guarantee that 'trade union views are taken into account by Commonwealth government and institutions'. As of 1982 the CTUC Steering Committee included McDermott, Gopeshwar, W. Richardson, F. F. Walcott, Wright, N. K. Bhatt, J. Harker, L. Osunde, E. Mashasi, K. Mehta and R. L. Thaker. Shirley Carr also served as chair of CTUC.
CTUC took part in founding the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in 1987. In 1988 Patrick Quinn became director of CTUC, in 1994 Arthur Johnstone was named new director of CTUC.
CTUC was reconstructed as CTUG on December 31, 2004. The group works in cooperation with the International Trade Union Confederation. CTUG is accredited at the Commonwealth Foundation.
