Global Unions: G-20 Made Progress, But Not Enough

by James Parks, Sep 28, 2009

Members of the United Steelworkers marched in Pittsburgh to support good jobs around the world.

The G-20 Summit, which ended recently in Pittsburgh, made progress in some areas, but failed to completely address the overwhelming need to create new jobs now, according to leaders of the global union movement.

Trade unionists around the world will continue to pressure their governments to stimulate the global economy to put people back to work. Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that while he is glad the G-20 agreed to put jobs at the heart of their economic recovery agenda, big questions remain in some key areas.

With the global jobs crisis still worsening, a meeting of G-20 labor ministers to take place in early 2010 will be a key focus for the global trade union movement in the coming months.

The G-20 labor ministers’ meeting must push the maintenance and creation of decent jobs even higher up the agenda, with implementation of the ILO [International labor Organization] Jobs Pact as a central objective.  The international trade union movement must be given a seat at the table in this meeting, and we will be carrying forward our intensive efforts with governments, the ILO and other global institutions to make sure it and the June G-20 Summit in Canada deliver the results that working people demand.

The ILO Global Jobs Pact proposes a range of crisis-response measures that countries can adapt to their specific needs and situations. The pact urges measures to keep persons employed, to speed up job creation and jobs recovery combined with social protection systems, in particular for the most vulnerable workers

During the peaceful People’s March through downtown Pittsburgh on Sept. 25, thousands of marchers emphasized the need for jobs. Hundreds of United Steelworkers (USW) members took part, including USW Education Director Lisa Jordan, who addressed the crowd:

The United Steelworkers are here. We want to represent all the workers across the world who don’t have the voices that we have. We believe the most democratic thing we can do is speak out at the G-20. There should be workers’ voices. There should be environmentalists’ voices. There should be the voices of all of the people, not just the CEOs and the wealthy.

On the eve of the summit, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the world cannot afford to continue with a globalization that works only for the very richest and leaves workers and the communities they live in behind. Unions issued a G-20 declaration that calls for global action for good jobs. Trumka said:

Together, the labor movement and the environmental movement are a fighting force for change. This is our time—time to let the powers gathered here this week know exactly what we want, and exactly what  we won’t stand for. We want a clean-energy economy that creates good jobs, and we want a safe and healthy planet.

We need a new economic order that demands respect for both workers and the planet….Globalization that benefits only the rich, the assault on workers and the planet and the devastation it breeds has got to go.

While it is encouraging that the G-20 agreed to work on an international framework for a transactions tax to help make sure the financial sector pays a fairer share toward economic recovery, the reality is that world leaders only scratched the surface of “the urgently needed reforms to the international financial institutions’ policies and structures,” said John Evans, general secretary of the OECD Trade Union Advisory Committee.

The 50-strong international trade union delegation in Pittsburgh met the heads of government of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom in the 24 hours leading up to the G-20 Summit, and the French trade unions held a separate meeting with President Sarkozy the week before the Pittsburgh gathering. The meetings followed intense pressure at the national level in recent weeks, carrying on from the unions’ work at the Washington and London G-20 summits.

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