Global Unions Demand G-20 Focus on Jobs
The global union movement is calling on the labor ministers of the world’s top economies, known as the G-20, to create millions of new jobs around the world. In a statement prepared for the labor ministers meeting next week in Paris, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) and Global Unions say 110 million jobs are needed by 2015 just to return G-20 countries to pre-crisis levels. That’s 22 million new jobs every year. Read the global unions’ statement here.
“Stretching from China to Chile, we’re seeing the longest unemployment line the world has ever seen,” says ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
Workers, not bankers, will drive the world out of the economic crisis. Big Business is using the economic crisis as a smokescreen to push down wages. Collective bargaining rights are the most effective antidote to greed and will foster growth. Workers know first-hand why it’s important to have a decent wage, and a strong and vibrant business.
G-20 Labor Leaders Meet at AFL-CIO for Labor Summit
 |
||||
|
||||
When the world’s banks were going under, governments jumped to their aid. Now with record numbers of people out of work, it’s past time for governments to put working people first, or the fledgling economic recovery could fall apart. Leaders from the G-20 nations issued this warning while in Washington, D.C., this week for the first-ever meeting of G-20 labor ministers and employment ministers with labor and business leaders April 20-21.
The global union movement has been working to create a G-20 working group on employment and social protection since the global economic crisis erupted in 2008. Beginning at the summit in Pittsburgh last September, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has taken a leading role in the effort to make good jobs the central element in any global economic recovery. The federation hosted a meeting of G-20 labor economists in March to draft policy proposals for the labor ministers’ meeting. Trumka was a lead speaker from the global unions at the ministers’ meeting as well.
The G-20, which is now the main body for global economic policy, includes the leaders of the world’s major economies, together constituting 85 percent of world output and 60 percent of global employment.
Global Unions: Reform Banks Worldwide
The global union movement is calling on other governments to follow President Obama’s commitment to restructure banks as a key part of comprehensive financial regulatory reform. Obama has proposed a series of urgently needed reforms, including an end to the practice of banks using depositors’ money to engage in the kind of high-risk speculative operations, such as hedge funds and private equity, which helped plunge the world into recession.
As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said last week:
Financial companies must not be allowed to go back to business as usual—or worse. We urge the President and Congress to make financial re-regulation a top priority.
Global Unions: Put Jobs First at G-20
 |
|
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.
Unions Pushing for Global Jobs Policy
 |
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.
Global Unions: G-8 Didn’t Do Enough to Address Economic Crises
 |
|
The leaders of the world’s top economies failed to adequately address the three major economic crises facing the world—unemployment, climate change and development, according to leaders of unions around the globe who had called on the G-8 summit last week in Italy to take strong action to stimulate the global economy.
Said John Evans, general secretary of the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD) :
There are no explicit commitments to making the necessary resources available for achieving employment and social protection goals, although the focus on the need to protect the tax base represents a welcome step in this direction.
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.
