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UNI Global Union today called on world leaders at the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) jobs summit to make a commitment to the right of workers to join unions and collectively bargain as part of their plan to rebuild the world economy.



“The ILO was given a great opportunity by the London G20 communiqué and it is important the ILO seizes this opportunity so that it has a seat at the table at the G20,” UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings said. “It is important for the credibility of the 2009 ILO conference that the contours of a global jobs pact are agreed.”



World leaders are backing the union message as well.



Addressing the ILO yesterday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told unions and workers that the financial crisis was giving them the chance to create a new global economy.



“This is an exceptional opportunity for all of you to think and develop proposals together with the employers and business leaders so that we can change definitely the relations between state and civil society and so that we can build our countries with much more fairness and much more solidarity," he said.



Jennings says the next G20 summit, to be held in Pittsburgh, must be a jobs summit.



ILO Director-General Juan Somavia has said the global economy will need to create around 300 million new jobs up to 2015 just to keep up with the increase in the labour force but the world economy is still losing jobs and unemployment is expected to continue to rise at least until the end of 2010.



“We are faced with the greatest job challenge in living history,” Jennings said. “The G20 in Pittsburgh must be the jobs summit. Pittsburgh is at the crossroads of the service and industrial industries and working people in all fields are waiting for a clear jobs response from the G20 summit.”



The ILO is hosting world leaders this week as part of a special jobs crisis to confront the world economic crisis and its devastating impact on the world’s workers.



Jennings spoke at the ILO’s June 5 panel on “Social dialogue and industrial relations in the context of economic downturn,” where he highlighted the need of governments and companies to commit to recognising unions as the voice of workers and a partner in making decisions.



“We have a social dialogue in the European Union but it is now threatened by European Court of Justice cases that elevate economic rights over workers’ rights. Recent research shows that the country most able to withstand the crisis is Denmark: it has strong unions, strong labour agreements and strong active labour market policies,” Jennings said. “In the jobs pact, the ILO should take a clear stand on supporting social dialogue and bargaining rights and organising.”



He pointed to the United States where for decades the right to unionise and collectively bargain has been under attack and where working conditions and pay have deteriorated significantly in the last three decades.



“We need the US Employee Free Choice Act,” he said. “If union rights are not respected how can there be social dialogue?”



Jennings was on a panel with Jenni Myles, director of Employee Engagement and Human Resources at G4S. G4S, the world’s largest security company, has a global agreement with UNI to ensure its workers all over the world have basic union rights.



Jennings and Myles spoke to ILO conference attendees about the benefits of working together to deal with the consequences of the social crisis.



UNI is urging the governments at the ILO’s jobs summit to not only reaffirm their commitment to union rights but to lobby the US government to commit to these rights and pass the Employee Free Choice Act.



“President Obama supports this legislation and we think support from world leaders will only help him make sure it becomes law,” Jennings said. “US companies are the standard-bearers for corporate behaviour and we do not want to see them push every country into a race to the bottom that will only make life more difficult for our millions of working colleagues worldwide.”