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UNI Global Union and the ITUC’s affiliates from the Group of 20 countries gathered in Washington on Friday 14 November to forcefully call on the world’s governments and the International Financial Institutions to take decisive action to prevent a global slump by placing employment and worker assistance at the heart of a coordinated stimulus policy. The leaders also called on the world’s leaders to rebuild the global economy’s financial architecture with an emphasis on comprehensive regulation and supervision, reversing the radical financialisation of the global economy of recent decades. In a Washington Declaration (http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/0811t_gf_G20.pdf ) released before the G-20 Summit, the Global Unions also called on a new, more democratic system of governance for the global economy to give developing countries and unions a seat at the global policy-making table and for a major effort to combat global income inequality that underlies the crisis. UNI was represented by President Joe Hansen and Philip J. Jennings, and followed a lengthy debate at UNI’s World Executive just prior to the Summit.



Lobbying Kevin Rudd, Australia's Prime Minister

The G-20 summit and the parallel labor conference were called in recognition that no one country can solve the current economic crisis, given its massive scope. “This crisis,” UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings observed, “requires an aggressive and global response.” He applauded the inclusion of emerging market countries in the discussions in Washington. “The G-8 and the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ are dead; long live the G-20 and the emergence of a new, more progressive consensus,” he said.



The ITUC Team: Sharon Burrows, John Sweeney and Guy Ryder

Hansen and Jennings attended the special conference of G-20 labor leaders at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO and participated in a series of meetings with IFI leaders and individual governments on Friday. In a session with IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Jennings emphasized that “this crisis has a human face, and that face is overwhelmingly female as tens of millions of working women are the first victims of the financial meltdown.” He called on the IFIs to maintain their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, even as they mobilize a response to the crisis. “A recovery plan that provides lifeboats for bankers, but leaves workers in the water without life vests will not do,” he said. “A plan that leaves developing countries behind is unacceptable,” he added. UNI accepted an invitation from Strauss-Kahn to meet with IMF staff to discuss the UNI Finance Global Union proposal to improve regulation of banks.



UNI Demands an Aggressive and Global Response

Jennings tells IMF Managing Director Mr. D.Strauss-Kahn

As the G-20 labor leaders fanned out across Washington for bilateral meetings with their governments, ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder led a delegation to meet with World Bank President Robert Zoellick. Plans for the high-level talks between the Global Unions and the IFIs scheduled for January were discussed. In a separate meeting with Luis Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, the Brazilian President endorsed the Global Unions’ Washington Declaration and promised to seek a seat for them at the table when the G-20 reconvenes to review follow-up plans in April 2009.



The G-20 Communiqué: A Mixed Bag

Although the 20 governments and four international organizations invited to the summit issued an eight-page communiqué with a detailed action plan for confronting the worldwide economic crisis and reforming the global financial system, the success or failure of the summit will not be known until the spring, when the group reconvenes for the follow-up conference. This will give sub-committees created by the summit and tasked with fleshing out new policies for regulatory reform a chance to do their work and allow the new U.S. government of President Barack Obama to participate. Jennings called the communiqué a “mixed bag,” noting that the long list of recommendations to improve financial regulation is a “long charge sheet against financialisation and the complete absence of oversight and supervision – it represents a recognition that the days of self regulation and light surveillance are over and that oversight must be extended to the world of private equity, hedge funds and derivative trading opaque.”

Jennings noted that the G-20 statement failed to call on business leaders to do their part to combat the economic crisis. “There is a need for real social responsibility by employers – they should avoid making panicky job cuts,” he said. Although the G-20 declaration called for a review of executive compensation practices, UNI’s leader called the measure “weak.” He went on to observe: “There is insufficient attention to rising unemployment, falling wages or the need to strengthen social safety nets. There is no reference to promoting decent work and upholding core labour standards.

UNI and the Global Unions will redouble their efforts to push the G-20 to correct these omissions and to respond to the global crisis in a way that puts working people first. “The tasks of recovery and reform cannot be left to finance ministers and business interests alone – workers and their unions have to involved,” Jennings concluded.