"Dear participants of the 1998 Conference on Trade Unions, Homosexuality and Work,
On behalf of the city council and as the deputy mayor of the city of Amsterdam it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to Amsterdam, the so-called Gay Capital of Europe.
The city of Amsterdam is very proud to be the host of the Gay Games. During these two weeks, with the Gay Games and all the other events like this conference, the city of Amsterdam expects more than 200,000 participants and spectators.
I think that those two weeks will be important for the gay and lesbian emancipation within Amsterdam itself, the Netherlands as well as abroad. I have seen on the list of the nearly 200 participants that you come from 40 countries from all the over the world. Participants from Europe, but also from Africa, Asia, Australia, Northern and Latin America. I consider it an honour to welcome you in my city.

The city of Amsterdam conducts an active policy for emancipation of different groups of inhabitants. Therefore, Amsterdam is known as a tolerant and multicultural society where men and women should be able to declare their homosexual lifestyle without problems. Over the years tolerance has increased and discrimination has been dealt with. However, tolerance does not mean acceptance. Homosexuals are still talked about their sexual orientation, running the risk of exclusion. It has been shown that the gay and lesbian emancipation policy also in Amsterdam is still necessary. That is why the Gay Games and all the events around it are a great opportunity from the aspect of emancipation.

The Gay Games will be mainly about sports and culture, but there are other aspects of life. That is why it is important that there also will be attention to the equal rights for gays and lesbians as employees and citizens.
Although discrimination is legally forbidden in the Netherlands, in practice discrimination at work is still common. Sometimes even your colleagues accept you as a lesbian or gay person at your workplace, there is still a lot to gain about the social consequences of your homosexual lifestyle.
The means that the council in its own personnel management policy has the duty to recognize the alternative relationships and to remove the discriminating rules. Last year there was a change in the personnel management rules: gay and lesbian employees who go for the partner registration get the same amounts of days off as when others marry. In my position as the alderman for personnel management I feel responsible for the equal rights of all the employees.

Examples of discrimination in individual working cases learn us that there is still a lot of work to be done about equal rights and mentality. It makes this conference of trade unions necessary. This conference will pay extra attention to the discrimination of gays and lesbians at work and makes this discrimination visible. It gives you activists and trade unionists the opportunity to exchange information and ideas about strategies, and a place for discussions.

The city of Amsterdam as a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association welcomes this initiative of the ILGA and the various European trade unions. Amsterdam considers it of utmost importance to fight against the discrimination of lesbians and gays all over the world and will support as much as possible initiative to support this flight.
I wish you all an interesting and inspiring conference about homosexuality and work.

I thank you."