ICFTU Asia and Pacific Regional Organisation

The ICFTU Asia and Pacific Regional Organisation (APRO) was a regional organisation of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), representing trade unions from countries in Asia and Oceania.

History

The federation was founded in May 1951 at a meeting in Karachi, as the Asian Regional Organisation. It was initially based in Calcutta, but moved to New Delhi in 1956, and then Singapore in 1988. In 1984 it changed its name to the ICFTU-Asia Pacific Regional Organisation. In 2007, following the merger of the ICFTU and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL), the organisation merged with the WCL's Brotherhood of Asian Trade Unions, to form the ITUC Regional Organisation for Asia and Pacific.

In 2006, the organisation described its aims thus:

The organisation seeks to bring about a just, welfare society with a higher standard of living. It believes that promoting a higher wage policy and the dignity and status of workers through a stronger trade union movement will help achieve this. Equipping workers with the skills to fight for fundamental rights, including the setting up of bona fide trade unions is perhaps its major undertaking. Under its current structure, ICFTU-APRO tackles education, information, social and economic policy, women, human and trade union rights and youth among its areas of work.