Why is the ILO important for workers?
RT: The ILO is important for many reasons. One, its gives ordinary men and women, who are workers, a chance that they do not get from other organizations, to say a single word in their defense. The ILO allows employers, allows workers and their representatives to be able to say how the world can be made better. Secondly, it sets standards. The people of the world - employers, governments - are more concerned about making money and some are getting rich, a few people remember the conditions of the people that create the wealth, who work. The ILO sets standards that people must be able to live by, minimum standards, you can get better ones, and it’s important! Thirdly, we workers consider that they are disadvantaged and that they need some place or someone to express their problems. Those workers are able through their trade-unions to be represented in a kind of supervisory body, like a court, to express their grievances and to get some kind of assistance. And another reason is that those workers organizations and employers organizations to and gouvernements wheather they are weak in their labour departments have a possibility for going to a body of experts, who have the required expertise to help them, to train them, and to give them technical support to make their organizations better so that the ordinary persons can get better support from their labour department, better support from their unions and the employers can get better support so that their HR-departments are better runned

Why is this Conference important for the workers of Belgium and the workers of other countries? What can you say to the workers in Belgium?
RT: The first thing I would say is that for your delegation although it was beautiful weather, you were not by the lakeside, you were not enjoying Geneva or the mountains. We take a long time at these meetings because we endeavour to discuss conditions which can make the workplace better. On this occasion we tried to get improve conditions for women at the workplace. We were dealing with gender equality. We were also dealing with the matter of improved treatment and greater respect for people who are suffering from HIV and AIDS. And we were trying to have people understand across the world that we cannot dismiss or discriminate against people who are suffering from that particular disease. The third technical issue we were talking about relates to that major crisis we have now in the world, it is the financial crisis, the crisis of the economy and the social crisis that is coming from it. We have been endeaouvering gouvernements, employers and workers to find a common position, that would satisfy the real economy. People who actually create wealth, that would satisfy them as to means through which we can make everybody better of. The poor could become less poor and those who are living in the rich countries but who are themselves poor, that their conditions could be approved as well. This has made this conference extraordinary and very special.

What is your opinion about the final text of the Committee of the Whole on crisis responses? Are you happy with it or could it be better?
RT: A text can always be better, but the text was prepared by governments on the one hand, the employers on the other hand and the workers. It was always prepared by rich countries and poor countries, developed countries and developing countries. It has to be a single text that satisfied all of these views. It is an excellent text, the workers would have liked to see in it reference progressive taxation, so that the very rich could contribute more of what they have earned through the blood and the tears of workers to create a new society. But governments don’t want that and employers don’t want that, it are only the workers who want progressive and fairer taxation. But outside of that, we would want to encourage workers and trade unions to try to have discussion groups, training programs or anything else of this sort, where people can understand paragraph by paragraph what this text is offering to governments, employers and workers and how this document can be used to make this world a better place.

How do you see the future of this text and the ILO?
RT: The text is like any other text. It can be taken back to our country and can be placed in the libraries or museums or something. It will only be good if the people, if the trade unions in your country and in my country, if the employers in your country and my country and if the governments, especially in the developed countries will used the resources they have committed to donating, will use that resources in the future to remove poverty from the world in the form that it now exist and try to create a better society for all of us.

We will do our best. Thank you very much for this interview.