New AFL-CIO Team at G-20: Working Together for Jobs and Fair Global Economy

by Seth Michaels, Sep 23, 2009

The newly elected leaders of the AFL-CIO are kicking off their participation around G-20 summit events in Pittsburgh today by meeting with global union leaders to deliver a strong, unified message: We all must work together to fix the world’s economy. 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he’s seeing broad agreement among union leaders from around the world about the need to put workers first: 

“I’m amazed at the solidarity here. The problems in all the G-20 countries are like our own, and the solutions are jobs, more jobs and regulating the economy. And there is consensus worldwide among all the trade union movements that we’re meeting here at the G-20 on all those items. 

“It’s comforting to know that our brothers and sisters around the world are willing to stand up to help create jobs everywhere, to help create a better life for working people and to re-regulate the financial economy and make it the servant of the real economy, rather than the master.” 

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said that talking with union leaders from other countries reminded her that the economic crisis doesn’t end at America’s borders, and that we need international efforts to remedy the crisis: 

There’s such a need for job creation—good, sustainable jobs….People are desperate for work, not just in America but around the world. There’s an urgent need for us to have regulation in our financial system—regulation of banks—and we’ve got to have a universal concept of consumer protection. Our issues are the same, whether here in America or around the world: Workers are hurting.

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