Giacomo Barbieri has been Manager of the Programme for Workers' Activities at the Turin Centre since September 2008.  He is committed to using his deep knowledge of the international trade union movement to improve the Programme's capacity to meet the training needs of workers' organizations around the world. The ultimate goal is to shape a global economy based on social justice and full decent employment.

Giacomo has long experience in the Italian and the international trade union movement, which began with the FIOM-CGIL, the largest Italian metalworkers’ federation, in Milan in 1976.

From 1985 to 1997, he was the international director of the FIOM-CGIL in Rome. In  1997, he was appointed as Director of the international department of the CGIL, the most representative Italian trade union confederation. In this position, he coordinated the CGIL’s bilateral relations with more than 150 trade union centres worldwide, and contributed to trade union education projects on organizing, collective bargaining and labour market policies, as well to international solidarity campaigns. He has been member of the Executive Committee of the ETUC and of the Executive Committee of the ICFTU and of the General Council of the ITUC.

Giacomo has represented his organization on international trade union bodies, at congresses and at institutional meetings, and has liaised with the Italian Government and the European Union to promote the social dimension, and more democratic governance, of the global economy, the decent work agenda and fundamental workers’ rights.