Global Unions: G-20 Made Progress, But Not Enough
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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.
Trumka, ACTU’s Burrow Call for Corporate Accountability, Jobs
As the G-20 Summit begins in Pittsburgh, union leaders from around the world are coming together to demand tough new rules that put people ahead of corporate profits.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today the world’s major economies need continued short-term stimulus, more progressive tax systems and serious public investment in job creation and regulation of the financial system—coordinated internationally—to prevent the wealthy few from benefiting at the expense of workers. We need to create new norms for responsible business conduct and make sure the economy is benefiting workers, Trumka said.
This G-20 Summit must be nothing less than a jobs summit, seeking solutions to our international job crisis through fundamental economic reforms.
Throughout the world, working men and women must have a voice, and a place at the G-20 table, and the global unions are prepared to fill that role….In solidarity, we can bring about an economic recovery, and we can do it now.
New AFL-CIO Team at G-20: Working Together for Jobs and Fair Global Economy
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 Leaders Headed Back to Pittsburgh to Fight for a Fair Economy
The new leaders of the AFL-CIO will meet up today in Pittsburgh to prepare for the G-20 conference, finishing up a listening tour among workers to kick off their administration and set out a strong progressive agenda.
Advocating on issues like housing, financial reform and health care reform that includes a public option, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker have been sending a clear message to big banks, insurance companies and others whose greed and irresponsibility have left us with a broken economy.
The Lesson of Pittsburgh for G-20: Manufacturing Matters
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The revival of Pittsburgh, site of the G-20 summit this week, can provide valuable lessons for the world’s leaders. Among them: Manufacturing matters and poor trade policies hurt everyone.
“Pittsburgh, G-20 and the New Economy: Lessons to Learn, Choices to Make,” a report released today by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), makes clear that the renaissance of Pittsburgh after the collapse of the steel industry was cut short because of the lack of a national industrial policy and the nation’s trade policies.
During a telephone news conference, CAF Co-Director Robert Borosage said some manufacturing jobs in Pittsburgh were replaced by high-end jobs in education or medicine.
But many were replaced by jobs in hotels and food services—jobs that never paid as well and proved even more vulnerable in the recent downturn. Some manufacturing jobs were never replaced at all. That helps explain why the city’s population is declining, especially among youth, who seek opportunity elsewhere.
Global Unions: Put Jobs First at G-20
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At the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh this week, the world’s leaders need to focus on the urgent need to create millions of new jobs and reform the global financial and trading system.
More than 50 trade union leaders from around the world, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, will meet with the G-20 leaders to press the case for a coordinated global economic strategy to stimulate new jobs to ensure a real recovery.
With 59 million people expected to be unemployed worldwide by the end of the year, Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), says:
Governments must do much more to arrest the plunge in jobs as tens of millions of people, especially young people and those in precarious jobs, find themselves facing a future without work. Coordinated global action to maintain and create jobs is required, and this has to start with the Pittsburgh Summit. Any talk of recovery has little meaning until people are getting back to work.
Trumka Calls for Just Transition to Green Economy
The union and environmental movements must act together to reduce carbon emissions, stabilize climate change and reverse practices that put our very survival at risk, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. Trumka and the new AFL-CIO leadership team are on a multi-state listening tour, talking with workers—and taking on Wall Street and the big health insurance industry.
Speaking last night at the Jobs, Justice and Climate conference sponsored by the New York Society for Ethical Culture, Trumka said the union movement is committed to ending our dependence on foreign oil and reversing the threat of climate change by transforming the way Americans use energy.
We have much common ground—in fact, a fragile planet of common ground.
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.
Trade Unions to G-20: Half Measures Will Not Fix Global Economy
As the G-20 governments get set to meet next week in London, where they will discuss strategies for pulling the global economy out of this recession, trade unions are demanding leaders of the world’s top economies take strong actions—including spending more of their nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) on addressing the global financial crisis.
Meeting in Rome and London in advance of the G-20, members of the global union movement are proposing a five-point plan that includes detailed policy proposals and sets out actions needed to tackle the crisis and build a fairer and more sustainable world economy for the future. Among those, is the need for G-20 governments to spend at least 2 percent of their nation’s GDP on solving the crisis. Currently, European nations are spending no more than 1 percent.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who is leading the global union delegation, says the international economy cannot go back to business as usual.
The need for change goes much deeper and there is a real risk that when the economy begins to improve, there will be an attempt to return to the failed policies of the past. There can be no “business as usual.” Together we must build a new framework for a stronger, more sustainable and more just global economy going forward….The global task is just beginning.
