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German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel assured that her government will push for compliance of core labour standards and decent work agenda in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded projects. Chancellor addressed the 49th ADB Annual meeting participants at the host country reception held on 2nd May 2016, in Frankfurt.  She said that German companies should take the lead in promoting best practices in line with the international labour and environmental standards across the supply chains operations globally.

Trade unions and civil society organizations welcomed Chancellor Merkel and German Government’s position to promote decent work to arrest income inequalities resulting from precarious work in the global supply chain operations working for Multi-national Corporation; which was in line with the theme of the 49th ADB meeting “Cooperating for Sustainability”

Global Unions are campaigning for 15 years to operationalise ADB’s commitments through member countries to comply with international labour standards in the projects funded by the bank.

Trade union leaders from UNI Apro Finance and PSI also made their call to the ADB President Takehiko Nakao during his interaction with the Civil Society Organizations. UNI Apro Finance President Masakazu Tahara questioned about the ADB’s policy directives towards coping with acute financial deficits and unsustainable debts in the region. PSI Regional Secretary Lakshmi Vaidhiyanathan queried about ADB’s alignment with the private sector financing infrastructure projects through Private Public Partnerships (PPP). President Nakao responded that ADB does not consider PPP as a panacea, but carefully analyse the impacts of mobilizing private sector resources for projects to support inclusive and sustainable growth in the emerging economies, and said that the member countries are repaying the loans hence they are managing with debt levels.  

Along with trade unions there were many other NGO’s voiced for strict compliance of core labour standards, sharing cases of violations in the projects funded by ADB.

Global unions jointly with the CSO issued a communique highlighting that:   ADB cannot espouse to eradicate poverty in Asia when its own interventions defy internationally recognized basic rights of workers.

Refer the related file below for the detailed joint communique issued by Global Unions