It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of IUF former General Secretary, Dan Gallin on May 31, 2025.
Dan was General Secretary of the IUF from 1968-1997. Under his leadership the IUF grew both its geographical organization and its sectoral scope with the merger of the agricultural and plantation workers international, IFPAAW, into the IUF in 1994.
Dan’s vision was global, a true internationalist. He knew that in response to neo-liberalism and globalization the trade union movement had to globalize. One manifestation of this was his strategy for dealing with transnational companies.
In 1989, he negotiated the IUF’s first international agreement with Groupe Danone which gave workers’ representatives the right to economic and social data about the company. In 1994, this engagement was broadened with the signing of an agreement guaranteeing the fundamental right of each Danone employee to join and be represented by the trade union organization of their choice. Today the IUF has 9 agreements with Danone covering issues of critical importance to workers and multiple agreements with other transnational companies in all IUF sectors.
Dan was a great strategist, great linguist, great leader. His vision for the labour movement was broad and inclusive, recognizing that all workers, irrespective of their employment status, had the right to join and be represented by a trade union.
On his retirement, Dan founded the Global Labour Institute where he continued to challenge the labour movement to think beyond national boundaries and to become truly international.
He was a prolific writer and leaves an important body of work which will continue to shape and guide labour movement thinking.
For the IUF staff he was always generous with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the labour movement, mentoring and developing understanding of the work that had to be done.
He will be greatly missed but he will always be with us in his writings, in the memories we share and in the work we continue to do to achieve his vision of a global labour movement.
