Labor & Employment Law

Global Union Leaders: Focus on Jobs, Not Deficits

By James Parks

Global union leaders called on G-20 governments  to deliver the promise made at the Pittsburgh summit to “put quality employment at the heart of the recovery” and focus on creating jobs in the short term to sustain the recovery and reduce public deficits in the medium term.

The union leaders from the G-20 countries are warning their governments that efforts to cut budgets and impose fiscal austerity now could plunge the international economy into another, deeper recession. The statement was issued yesterday by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Council (TUAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). 

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. 

Union leaders also stressed the need for G-20 governments to focus on progressive revenue?raising measures and agreeing to immediate action on implementing a financial transaction tax as one means of meeting public funding requirements.

A delegation of G-20 union leaders will deliver their plan for a job-centered recovery on Friday to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the host for the upcoming G-20 summit in Ontario. Read the Global Unions’ full statement to the Ontario Summit here.

Specifically, the global unions’ plan calls on G-20 leaders to:

• Keep in place stimulus measures that focus on jobs and growth and support measures that put jobs based on decent work at the center of the post-crisis policy.
• Stop speculative attacks on currencies and deliver fair taxation, including a financial transactions tax to curb speculative behavior.
• Reform the financial system through coordinated G-20 action.
• Ensure that climate change policies encompass a “just transition” and invest in green, labor-intensive infrastructure projects and help workers develop the skills required to build the green economy and provide social protections.
• Build a new model for global governance based on full employment and establish a standing G-20 working group on employment.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 16, 2010 (boomark / email).