News

• Labour 20 Summit opens in Brisbane on Thursday
• Media Conference at 09.45am, Brisbane time

A new survey of Labour 20 members representing working people in G20 economies has found that 56% of G20 policies are considered ineffective in improving outcomes for working people.

“More than half of G20 policies have failed to have a positive impact on working people with weak action on issues that could have had an impact on workers lives such as jobs, decent wages and social protection”, said Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation on the eve of the annual Labour 20 (L20) Summit in Brisbane, Australia.

More than 200 million people were unemployed in 2013, an increase of 5 million compared with the year before according to the International Labour Organisation.

“Governments are prioritising policies which support the interests of big business and not tackling the inequality of wages and rising unemployment,” said Ms Burrow.

“In Brisbane, the G20 needs to agree on a plan for jobs and growth, putting in place comprehensive measures to support aggregate demand, reduce inequality and spur investments. This must be backed up by national job creation targets, and followed up in consultation with social partners,” said John Evans, General Secretary of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC).

Economic modelling prepared for the L20 shows that a co-ordinated mix of wage and investment policies in G20 countries could halve the global Jobs gap and create up to 5.84 percentage points more growth in G20 countries, compared to business as usual.

L20 Chair and Australian Council of Trade Unions President Ged Kearney said that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott should use his role as chair of the G20 Summit in Brisbane to make effectively tackling unemployment and slow wages growth a top domestic and global priority.

“With Australia’s unemployment at a 12-year high of 6.2%, and youth unemployment more than double that at 14%, the Abbott Government must shelve its spin and set out a jobs plan,” Ms Kearney said.

“Prime Minister Abbott needs to understand that empty rhetoric won’t cut it. He needs to spell out concrete policies and initiatives for job creation based on decent wages, conditions and investment in skills.”

The ITUC Global Poll 2014 of G20 countries found

• 68 per cent of people say their government is bad at tackling unemployment
• 79 per cent of people believe the economic system favours the wealthy, rather than being fair to most people
• 62 per cent of people want their governments to do more to tame corporate power

The results of the G20 tracking survey will be presented at the Labour 20 Summit in Brisbane 14 -15th November 2014.

MEDIA CONFERENCE

Sharan Burrow, John Evans and Ged Kearney will be available to discuss the report and the L20 Summit at a media conference at

09.45am, Thursday 13 November

Emporium Hotel, 1000 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley

Media Contacts:

L20/ITUC:       Gemma Swart – e:  gemma.swart@ituc-csi.org; p: +32  479 06 41 63

 or +61 414 873 291

L20/TUAC:     Anna Byhovskaya – e: byhovskaya@tuac.org; p: +33 155 37 37 37

ACTU:            Mark Phillips – e: mphillips@actu.org.au; p: +61 422 009 011

Online links to reports and recommendations:

Read the findings of the ITUC Global Poll 2014 www.ituc-csi.org/ituc-global-poll-2014 I   

(English, French, Spanish)

L20 recommendations to the G20 Summit http://www.ituc-csi.org/l20-recommendations-g20-leaders (English, French, Spanish)

L20 Tracking Survey http://www.ituc-csi.org/l20-policy-tracking-2013-14 (English)

Economic modelling prepared for the L20 by Professor Ozlem Onaran, University of Greenwich  http://www.ituc-csi.org/the-case-for-a-coordinated-policy (English)

L20 Info-graphic The World Needs a Pay-rise http://www.pinterest.com/pin/518195500848715100/