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UNI Global Union’s President Ann Selin and UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings are part of a high-level delegation taking part in a two day seminar at the Vatican with his Holiness, Pope Francis.

Ann Selin, who is president of PAM, Finland’s Service Union United said, “In his work, the Pope has repeatedly spoken out on the importance of action to reduce poverty. Therefore, it is an honour to be able to discuss with him practical ways to improve the conditions of work and workers’ rights around the world.”

In his address Jennings will respond to the question, ‘what is the new paradigm?’

Jennings said it was time to move away from the culture of ‘greed is good’ to ‘greed is dead’:

“The tools are there, from active labour market policies, equality of opportunity and pay to labour laws that embrace work in all its forms, lifelong learning and more. We must wield them. The labour movement has been a bulwark against the debasement of the person caused by the old paradigm. And we must protect the advances that we have made, but we must also do more than call for more than a better distribution of wealth in our current system. We have to forge a new model. A new paradigm puts the people at the centre of economic development.”

Also attending the two day seminar among more than a  hundred union leaders are the Director General of the ILO Guy Ryder and the General Secretary of the ITUC, Sharan Burrow.