European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions

Mission & Goals

The European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI) is a confederation more than 40 member trade union organisations from over 20 European countries, with a total of more than 6 million individual members (figures from July 2025). CESI advocates improved living and working conditions for workers in Europe. CESI's particular strength lies in the public sector but CESI also represents private sector workers. CESI defends trade union pluralism as a core component of freedom and democracy, views non-partisanship as a guiding principle of its work, and strictly adheres to ethical fundamental principles such as integrity, fairness, incorruptibility and transparency. CESI and its members are involved in advocacy work as an interest group and in social dialogue as a recognised European social partner (since 2005), being involved in various EU-level sectoral social dialogue committees.