Ei-iE

The Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has called on leaders meeting at the G20 high-level conference on Strengthening Economic and Social Policy Coherence to take action to achieve decent work standards.

The meeting, held on 23 May in Paris, France, was attended by the ITUC and TUAC representatives, as well as delegations from G20 countries, the International Labour Organisation (ILO); World Trade Organisation; OECD, UN Development Programme (UNDP); International Monetary Fund; World Bank and regional development banks. Trade union speakers on the agenda included Richard Trumka; Artur da Silva Santos; Yves Veyrier, and the former EI Vice President and current ITUC General Secretary, Sharan Burrow.

The trade unionists pushed for the establishment of a G20 Working Group on Employment and Social protection, which would ‘assess the employment impact of the crisis in a range of countries, analyse the effectiveness on the labour market of the economic stimulus packages in G20 countries, and make recommendations for targeted and co-ordinated recovery packages to maximise the impact on growth, employment, equity and social protection, with a target for decent work creation so as to achieve inclusive growth in each country’.

The concept of a global social protection floor received wide support, especially from Brazil and the UNDP which argued that this could be achieved at a cost of only two per cent of GDP in every country. France, Germany, and the ILO also said they were in favour. India expressed concern at any imposition of a model to achieve universal social protection, while the World Bank was silent on the issue, opting to stress micro-level actions instead.

The TUAC declaration states that ‘the G20 needs to contribute decisively to establishing an effective global social protection floor, both through its own discussions and in the context of the UN’s Bachelet Commission and debates at the ILO conference in June 2011.”

While all speakers emphasised their commitment to respect for core labour standards, India and China opposed any linkage of labour standards to trade.

There was strong agreement on the case for greater coherence between the actions of the different international organisations and governments. The need for employment targets comparable to fiscal and other macro-economic targets was emphasised by ILO Director-General, Juan Somavia, while the case for including employment targets in the G20’s Mutual Assessment Processes was stressed by Germany.

The TUAC statement also called on G20 governments to ‘endorse the establishment and joint implementation of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) that would tax unproductive speculative activities at the same time as providing resources for establishing a social protection floor, development, climate action and quality public services.’

The TUAC’s declaration also noted that the G20 must ‘regain momentum through urgent action’ to support demand in the global economy and prioritise employment-creating labour market policies, with employment targets incorporated into national economic programmes, and promote labour standards and decent work across all international institutions through cooperation with the ILO.

EI supports these demands and reiterates its belief that an FTT would allow governments around the world to achieve three core goals: to repair the growing cost of the global financial and economic crisis by reducing unacceptably high rates of unemployment; fulfil important development assistance, like education for all children, and, dampen the financial markets’ speculative bubbles which pose high risks to many economies.

The full union declaration is available here.