Trade Union Message to G20 Leaders: “Deliver Commitment on Jobs Now!”

15 June 2010: The ITUC and TUAC will hold a press briefing on Tuesday 15 June from 13.30-14.30 at the Palais des Nations, Geneva (Room XI – interpretation: English, German, French and Spanish) to release the Global Unions’ Statement to the G8/G20 Ontario Summits. Speakers will include Michael Sommer, President of the Confederation of German Trade Unions, DGB and Vice-President of the ITUC; James Howard, Director of Economic and Social Policy, ITUC, and John Evans, General Secretary, TUAC. The statement will put forward a comprehensive plan for growing the global economy out of the recession.

Unions warn leaders of the grave risks of governments prematurely implementing fiscal austerity measures across G20 economies and locking the global economy into a global recession. The global economy is still mired in the most serious jobs crisis since the Great Depression. The recovery is weak, fragile and uneven. Austerity measures will only serve to weaken, if not cripple, growth and so drive our economies back into recession. G20 Leaders must not allow bond markets to drive economic policy. The unions will call on G20 Leaders to deliver the promise given at the Pittsburgh Summit to “put quality employment at the heart of the recovery” and focus on creating jobs in the short term so as to sustain the recovery and reduce public deficits in the medium term. Moreover, they will stress the need for G20 Leaders to focus on progressive revenue-raising measures and agree immediate action on implementing a Financial Transaction Tax as one means of meeting public funding requirements.

The Unions’ alternative plan for a job-centred and sustained recovery will be delivered by a delegation of G20 trade union leaders to the G8 and G20 host, Canadian Prime Minister Harper, in Ottawa on 18 June, in advance of their participation at the Summits at the end of the month.

The plan calls on G20 Leaders to:

–  Retain stimulus measures that focus on jobs and growth and support measures that place a sustainable labour market model based on decent work at the centre of the post-crisis policy framework;

–  Halt speculative attacks on currencies and deliver fair taxation including implementing a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) to curb speculative behaviour whilst raising the necessary funds to pay for the crisis and other public goods;

–  Reform the financial system through coordinated G20 action so as to break the vicious circle of an un-reformed financial system driving government decision-making, whilst retaining the volatility that could trigger another crisis in the medium-term;

–  Ensure that climate change policies encompass ‘Just Transition’ and invest in green, labour-intensive infrastructure, develop the skills required to build the green economy, provide social protection and support social dialogue;

–  Build a new paradigm for global governance based on full employment and establish a standing G20 Working Group on Employment that includes the social partners, support social partner participation in all G20 Summits and consultation with the Financial Stability Board (FSB), invite the ILO to prepare the employment components of the G20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth and implement the new OECD Declaration on Propriety, Integrity and Transparency.

The unions will call on G8 Leaders in particular to:

–  Meet aid commitments and support the MDGs by agreeing an Action Plan for meeting the MDGs together with a framework for monitoring commitments, invest in public services, place decent work at the heart of development assistance and support women’s economic empowerment;

–  HIV and AIDS: publish a plan ahead of the MDG Summit in September 2010 for meeting commitments on Universal Access to HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support, strengthen workplace-based peer education programmes and replenish the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria;

–  Education: mandate a multi-stakeholder high-level Committee to make recommendations for achieving Education for All (EFA), develop relevant vocational education and training, hold a G20 key ministerial meeting on this topic in 2011 and launch a Global Partnership for Teacher Education;

–  Social Protection: implement the ILO’s ‘social protection floor’, through the creation of a Social Protection Fund and ensure that emerging and developing countries are given both the resources and the policy space for its implementation.

See the Global Unions’ Statement to the G8/G20 Ontario Summits

For more information on the Global Unions’ Statement contact: at TUAC John Evans (Tel +33608674536); at ITUC James Howard (Tel + 32497540333)