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Unions Call for Action for a Fairer Global Economy |
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The 2009 AFL-CIO Convention is ending today, but the global union movement is keeping its attention focused on Pittsburgh, as world leaders will soon arrive for the G-20 summit. Today, AFL-CIO members expressed solidarity with workers around the world and recognized that we can’t solve the international economic crisis alone.
Convention delegates approved a resolution calling for a coordinated effort by the AFL-CIO and our brothers and sisters around the world to seek international solutions to the challenges facing the world’s workers.
Resolution 9, “A Labor Movement Agenda for a Stronger, Cleaner and More Just Global Economy,” lays out principles to bring together unions across national borders, to counterbalance the power of multinational corporations, encourage international cooperation to recover from the financial crisis and protect the lives and rights of workers around the world.
Bill Lucy, secretary-treasurer of AFSCME, thanked the many international delegates who are attending the conference and called on the world’s leaders to step up their efforts to turn around the world’s economy:
Just as the global union movement is connected by solidarity and a shared commitment to social and economic justice, today we are connected by a worldwide economic crisis.
Given the specter of a persistent global jobs crisis, there is an urgent need for a far more aggressive and internationally coordinated jobs-oriented recovery strategy.
The resolution includes a call for the G-20 nations, including the United States, to dedicate more funding to economic recovery and job creation, as well as international union cooperation in protecting the freedom of workers to form unions and preventing violence against union members. The resolution also calls on global governments to coordinate efforts to fix a broken international banking system and prevent climate change.
The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center will be at the center of these efforts.
Flight Attendants-CWA President Pat Friend, speaking in support of the resolution, said the global union movement would need to take the lead in pushing for international economic recovery, starting with the upcoming G-20 summit:
We cannot rely on governments on their own to act with the urgency needed to meet the global economic crisis and create a global economy that works for all.
Candace Owley of the AFT was among the delegates speaking out on behalf of Resolution 9, calling it vital to global economic and social justice:
Today more than ever we are a global society—the economic crisis in one nation can bring down banks around the world and workers everywhere feel the pain.
Workers around the world are facing an unprecedented crisis…our problems are universal and so our unions must be as well.
2 Comments
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Could someone please explain to me how there can be a FAIR global economy as long as there is FREE trade? The USA’s trade deficit continues to climb and as long as we’re mired in free trade how can it possibly do otherwise?
On our way to saving the world can we please stop in our nation’s capitol where workers’ rights are being ignored by the Mayor, Dept. of Rec., Dept. of Human Services, and the Chancellor of Schools? People are being fired without cause and jobs are consistently being privatized and workers are being left with no recourse. Where is our union representation? We’ve paid our dues, so where is the support? Why is no one telling the real story of DCPS instead of drinking the Michelle Rhee Kool Aid? In October 200 teachers will be dismissed from their jobs. The union must be vigilent to ensure that seniority is observed.
A clear message needs to be sent with a law suit includiing all the unions in DC. There is a conspiracy to categorically union bust and it must be stopped. I am all for saving the world but charity begins at home!