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About Major Groups: Workers & Trade Unions

Country-by-Country Profiles

The trade union interest for integrating sustainable development principles within their areas of work is growing. Defining and coordinating national, sector and workplace-level actions to implement many aspects of sustainable development remains a priority. The purpose of the profiles is to provide a national-level framework for dialogue between major groups and their governments on priorities for action and implementation at the local level.

Trade unions circulated the first version of the profiles to the governments at CSD-12 in 2004. At the request of the EU Presidency they consulted with other sectors of the major groups and through regular multi-stakholder consultations, started to produce increasingly more comprehensive versions of the Profiles.

The profiles have become a guidepost for national and regional-level actions on sustainable development issues. They would be used by trade unions to plan national workplace action programmes, as well as by other major groups' sectors as a basis of national decision-making and international analysis.

The profiles link economic, social and environment data within a framework of sustainable development. Read more