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The Annual Meetings are statutory occasions for the Governors of the ADB to provide guidance on ADB administrative, financial, and operational directions. These meetings provide opportunities for member governments to interact with ADB staff, civil society groups including trade unions, media, academe and the private sector on ADB operations and policy directions.

Recognizing that this is an important venue for trade unions to address concerns and issues in relation to the ADB, the three regional Global Union Federations are developing a platform to ensure that a trade union voice is heard so that critical issues impacting workers are incorporated in ADB policies and programs. Of particular interest to the GUFs is the mainstreaming of Core Labour Standards in ADB’s policies and programs, particularly since the ADB formally adopted the CLS of the International Labor Organization (ILO) as part of its Social Protection Strategy in 2002. Although the compliance of the CLS is not mandatory, it nevertheless, commits ADB’s developing member countries by virtue of being a member of the ILO to respect and promote the CLS.

2 May 2009, Bali, Indonesia – Gathering early at the meeting venue and wearing red pins that say “Movement of Workers: the Centre of Asian Development,” Asia Pacific members of the Global Unions – led by Public Services International (PSI), Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) and UNI Global Union met with Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kuroda at the kick-off of the 42nd Annual ADB Governors’ Meeting. Representatives of the global unions make up more than half of the 150-strong civil society group invited by ADB to its Bali meeting.

In this rare face-to-face meeting with the ADB president, the global unions voiced strong reservations as to the premises and thrusts of ADB’s long-term strategic framework dubbed as “Strategy 2020.” Lakshmi, a union leader from PSI India, described the framework as ‘fundamentally flawed’ and urged the ADB that public investments, instead of increased support for private sector operations, must be made the primary component of the bank’s economic recovery strategies. She added that the increase in public investments should create and improve jobs, and make quality public services available especially in the face of the global meltdown.

The global union delegates, at one point of the exchange, stood up wearing symbolic protest eyeglasses with big question mark signs that say “20 ? 20,” underscoring the unions’ demand for ADB to revise and rethink its Strategy 2020.

Lakshmi also stressed to Mr. Kuroda the unions’ call to make core labor standards (CLS), as defined by the International Labor Organization (ILO), an integral component of all ADB-financed projects. This campaign is to mainstream CLS as part of the ADB Safeguard Policy, in addition to three safeguard policies that the Bank has committed to to date: Environment Policy (2002), Policy on Indigenous Peoples (1998), and Policy on Involuntary Resettlement (1995).

Taking into account the Bank’s interest to highlight cases on promoting labor standards in ADB projects, Lakshmi suggested that rectifying the violations in an ADB-financed power project in Madya Pradesh, India could be a good start. She cited the project’s blatant disregard for worker’s fundamental rights – that includes the right to collective bargaining – and the contractor’s increasing dependence on labor outsourcing. She also deplored the lack of consultations with unions on this ADB project.

Representing construction and forest workers, Rulita of the BWI exhorted the ADB to be wary of the trap of “forest lock-ups” – a scheme of developed countries “buying” acres of forest from developing countries in order to off-set their carbon emission – that may result from the ADB’s Climate Change policy, which is part of Strategy 2020. “These ‘lock-ups’ may undermine forest-related industry development in the region,” she said. “This alarming scheme, pushed by industrial lobbyists, can unleash unsustainable logging in poor countries and thereby deprive employment to millions of workers, which in turn will negate the bank’s goal of poverty reduction” Rulita warned Mr Kuroda.

Speaking on the adverse effects of the global financial crisis, the UNI Apro Regional Secretary, Christopher Ng, strongly argued for ADB’s share in the drive to create a stronger international regulation of financial markets. “The lessons of the current crisis are loud and clear,” he said. Thus, the unions are calling on the ADB to include among its measures the clampdown on the shadow financial economy, the end to tax havens, the regulation of credit ratings agencies, and the protection of working people from predatory lending, among others. He also said that ADB must ensure that its loans should only finance government stimulus packages that would result in the creation of decent jobs with living wages, healthy working environments and the promotion of CLS.

For his part, Mr Kuroda openly acknowledged “the important role of trade unions in the ADB processes.” He welcomed the inputs saying that the dialogue is consistent with the Bank’s thrust to strengthen dialogues with stakeholders at every level to better promote inclusive development in the region. He promised that the issues raised by the unions will be part of the policy discussions of the ADB Board.

At the end of the interface, Inokuchi Noboru of the PSI, in a symbolic gesture, presented Mr. Kuroda a bag printed with the question “ADB Labor Desk… When?!” This call is along the line of the global unions’ demand to institutionalize a more regular dialogue between the ADB and the unions on the impact of ADB projects on workers through a labor desk.

The PSI, BWI and UNI represent about 52 million workers across the globe in the public sector, building and construction, and in the services sectors, respectively.