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Unions Pushing for Global Jobs Policy |
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The global union movement is pushing hard to make sure the issue of jobs is high on the agenda when leaders of the G-20 governments meet in Pittsburgh in September.
Around the world, unemployment and lack of decent work are devastating economies. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that another 20 million women and men soon could be out of work.
A plan developed by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) calls for G-20 governments to spend at least 2 percent of their nation’s gross domestic product on solving the crisis. Currently, European nations are spending no more than 1 percent. The plan urges a coordinated international recovery and sustainable growth plan to create jobs.
The plan also calls for ensuring that all workers have the freedom to bargain a contract with their employer while also strengthening wage-setting institutions that will allow workers to earn a decent wage and boost economic growth through more household buying power.
Says TUAC’s General Secretary John Evans:
Unless and until decent work becomes a central objective of economic decision making, the fault lines which brought this crisis about will remain, and any eventual recovery will be permanently at risk.
TUAC estimates that more than 200 million workers could be pushed into extreme poverty, mostly in developing and emerging countries where there are no social safety nets. The number of working poor, earning below $2 per day for each family member, may rise to 1.4 billion worldwide.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:
There is an urgent need for a far more aggressive and internationally coordinated jobs-oriented recovery strategy than has been put on the table. The global labor movement is gravely concerned that fiscal stimulus packages to date are inadequate in size, imbalanced geographically, insufficiently focused on labor issues and are being implemented much too slowly.
During the G-8 summit in Italy recently, union leaders met with Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to discuss employment and economic recovery. The meeting followed a series of discussions with ministers from the host government, including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
As he has in past discussions, Lula, a former union leader, supported proposals to include trade unions in discussions about the new global economic structures, including the upcoming summit in Pittsburgh.
ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder says any global economic reform “must be based on a strong pillar of social rights, including crucially the ILO’s core labor standards.”
The real economy, decent work and poverty reduction can no longer be left at the fringe of global policy. The G-20 should not limit its horizons by simply making marginal changes to a discredited system. It needs to lead a complete overhaul in the way the world economy is run. Those who think that we can return to business as usual are seriously mistaken.
The G-20 is made up of the governments of 19 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the European Union.
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