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Message from ITUC General Secretary Guy Rider:



Dear Friends,



The ITUC is pleased to send you the attached statement, prepared jointly with the Global Union Federations and TUAC, for the 2009 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These meetings will be held in Washington on 25 and 26 April.



Recognising the need for immediate and drastic measures to resolve the global economic crisis, the attached statement from the international trade union movement demands that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund not only address the problems that contributed to the crisis, including some of their own policies on labour market deregulation, pension privatisation, and the removal of state support for small-scale agriculture, but also prioritise the creation of decent work as the key to economic recovery. The statement welcomes the decisions reached at the G20 London Summit, and insists that urgent action be taken to implement them. It emphasises that the international financial institutions (IFIs) must not only confirm the G20 conclusions, but add their own weight to the G20 proposals concerning global governance and social and employment cohesion. We further attach the ITUC/TUAC evaluation of the outcome of the G20 Summit.



The statement considers the role of the international financial institutions as part of a reformed system of global governance that must tackle the current crisis and build a more sustainable world economy. The required actions include:



Implementing a coordinated international recovery and sustainable growth plan focusing on public investment for maximum impact on job creation



Nationalising insolvent banks to restore confidence and lending in the financial system and establishing new rules and mechanisms to control global finance



Combating wage deflation and reversing the growth of income inequality by extending the coverage of collective bargaining and strengthening wage-setting institutions



Establishing a legal benchmark of norms and instruments of the international economic and social institutions – the ILO, IMF, World Bank, WTO and OECD – for effective and accountable global economic governance



With regard to the specific role of the IFIs in confronting the crisis, the statement criticises the IMF for supporting anti-recession programmes only in industrialised and some emerging economies while demanding pro-cyclical restrictive fiscal and monetary policies in less developed countries. The statement warns that by applying this double standard, the IMF may significantly limit any increase in overall aggregate demand that could result from the expansionary policies it is advocating on a global level. The statement further calls on both IFIs to encourage job creation as a priority objective of recovery strategies, because putting people to work is the most tangible and sustainable means of restoring domestic consumption levels. Noting that longstanding demands for governance reform of the IFIs remain unfulfilled, the statement urges both institutions to quickly and substantially increase the representation of developing countries in their decision-making structures.



We ask you to call on your government to endorse the propositions contained in this statement and have provided a model letter that you may find useful to accompany the statement when you send it to the government. Please keep us informed of your actions and any response you receive. Thank you for your cooperation.





Yours sincerely,



General Secretary





Appendix I





Appendix II





Appendix III