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UNI Global General Secretary, Philip Jennings said the ECB’s decision to give the Eurozone economy a massive 1.1 trillion euro injection was positive as long as it was used wisely.

He said the ECB decision had to get the wheels of investment turning again and income back in people’s pockets.

On the ECB announcement Jennings tweeted, “Bold message to the world. Europe determined to change the economic weather, time for business to dust off those investment plans #wef15”

Later speaking on the US Fox television network from Davos, Jennings said Europe was finally getting the message that the road to austerity was a dead end. He said it was time to get the 24 million European unemployed back to work and he emphasised the human cost of austerity in southern Europe, especially in Spain, Portugal and Greece where one in three is on the bread line.

In a series of interviews with top European newspapers, including Der Standard in Austria, and Le Temps in Switzerland and leading broadcasters including BBC World, France 24 and Russia Today, Jennings made the point that inequality and austerity was a recipe was disaster and that inclusive growth was the solution.

Jennings is in Davos with other labour movement leaders to argue for an end to failed austerity measures and global action to be taken to tackle inequality. During the day Jennings met with a number of top level leaders including, Angel Gurria, Head of the OECD, Christine Lagarde, Head of the IMF, Guy Ryder, Head of the ILO and Jan Eliasson, UN Deputy General Secretary.

Earlier Jennings had welcomed President Obama’s State of the Union address, applauding his call that unions be given a louder voice in the US through stronger labour laws which would bolster economic recovery.

Only a month after UNI Global Union’s World Congress had called for a more inclusive economy under the banner “Including You”, Jennings said he was gladdened to see Obama taking a stand and that Davos Man too was coming round to the fact that inequality was destroying the economy as well as communities. He cited “inclusive capitalism”, a theory put forward by Larry Summers and Ed Balls as further proof that the world was finally waking up to the imperative of creating a more equal global society. The depth of the current levels of inequality were further underlined by a statistic tweeted by New York Times journalist Steve Greenhouse: "If U.S. had same income distribution as in 1979, the bottom 80% would have $1 trillion more--$11,000 per family.”   

Jennings concluded, “The ‘Including You’ message is hitting home in Davos. Whether we talk about a new Magna Carta for workers’ rights, ‘Even it Up’, ‘Inclusive Capitalism’ or ‘Including You’ – the core of the message is the same – record levels of inequality must be tackled now, the status quo is unacceptable and damaging us all.”