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On the other hand, the International Labour Organisation's latest report on global employment trends leaves little room for optimism and draws an alarming picture of joblessness that is threatening social cohesion and political stability, posing risks to recovery.

Last week the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, met a delegation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Washington, confirming their desire to broaden the distribution of economic growth while extending social protections. However, beyond declarations of intent, it remains to be seen how concrete this commitment will be. For decades, the Bretton Woods institutions have promoted a market-driven development policy and conditional lending to developing countries based on public sector cuts.

In Washington, the IMF director has agreed with the unions that mitigating the social impact in crisis-hit countries was essential and he mentioned the IMF's ongoing work with the ILO to establish a universal social protection floor. As a matter of fact, under the lead of Strauss-Kahn since 2007, the IMF seems to have rediscovered the original Keynesian principles that led to its establishment in 1944: recovery is impossible without full employment, quality jobs and decent wages. Strauss-Kahn has also condemned the resumption of financial speculation by banks and bankers and called for a financial activities' tax to change the culture of banking speculation.

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the ITUC, said that "action to regulate the financial sector must be taken at once". Nevertheless, a financial transactions tax would better provide the necessary resources for development, climate action and quality public services.

As for Robert Zoellick, he said that the World Bank will consult with trade unions at national, sectorally and global level, confirming his support for the ILO core labour standards and to workers' protections.

And yet, the World Bank's report on Global Economic Prospects, issued just two weeks ago, clearly advocates fiscal austerity in the face of jobs recovery and protections. According to the labour movement it seems "highly illogical" for the bank to promote reduced social benefits and wages when all the other international reports show that real wages are falling or stagnating.

And besides that, it's noteworthy that the bank's leading publication, Doing Business, ranks countries and economies according to how easy it is to start a business there. Despite the crisis, the 2011 report still penalises those countries that require contributions by employers for unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, pensions, maternity leave or other social protection programmes. And the bank advocates the exemption from all forms of taxation for companies, whether it be corporate income tax, social security contributions, property tax, capital gains tax or financial transactions tax.

"The World Bank has caused enormous damage to workers by advising borrowing countries that labour standards should be dispensed with, and it is simply irresponsible to promote the idea that companies should not have to pay one cent of tax or social contribution," said Burrow.

In Doing Business 2011 the "employing workers indicator" was removed from the "ease of doing business index" and country rankings, although the basic data from which the indicator is calculated remains in an annex to the report.

But until last year countries that introduced social security contributions, such as, for example, Cambodia, were seen as business-unfriendly, while regimes such as Belarus were highly ranked for making it easier to eliminate jobs, even though the country had already lost its preferential trade status with the European Union for violating fundamental workers' rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining.

In the 2010 edition of Doing Business, the "top reformer" prize was won by Rwanda, because employers were no longer required to consult with the employees' representatives or notify the labour inspector before announcing job cuts.

So it seems fair to have very little trust in the international financial institutions' actual engagement in a socially sustainable recovery. Can they really be a part of the solution, since they helped create the system that has led to such global economic imbalances?

If the IMF and the World Bank are really committed to mitigating the impact of the global recession, as they so often say, then they should be fighting now for workers' rights. And they should actually mean what they say.

Source: guardian.co.uk