Challenges at the G8: TUC calls for action by Gordon Brown

TUC calls for G8 to focus on jobs

Letter to the Prime Minister

25 June 2009

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown to focus on job creation, action on global poverty and on climate change when he goes to the G8 next month in Italy.

Extracts from the letter

The TUC, along with the global trade union movement, is very concerned that measures to tackle the deepening global jobs crisis have not yet been sufficient to tackle the challenges the world faces. We are particularly concerned that people are already talking about returning to business as usual, and exit strategies, before those affected most by the recession have seen a material improvement in their circumstances. Nor has there yet been sufficient progress made to have confidence that the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties in December will be successful in addressing the challenge of climate change.

The upcoming G8 Leaders Summit in L'Aquila, Italy represents a crucial opportunity to build on the success of the London Summit. So I urge you to use that opportunity to press for:

• a further economic stimulus to combat the risk of wage deflation and reverse the growth of rising income inequality. A greater global effort to maintain and create decent work - especially more and better jobs, with adequate social protection - is essential;
• the establishment of the G20 working group addressing the employment impact of the crisis, working in close co-operation with the ILO and the proposed ILO Global Jobs Pact;
• a global charter for sustainable economic activity as advocated in paragraph 21 of the G20 London Summit, with a robust chapter on labour;
• the involvement of the ILO as the key partner in delivering a job-centred global recovery (France, Germany, Argentina and Brazil have recently gone on the public record in supporting ILO in this regard - I would welcome the UK taking the same position);
• further action to meet the Millennium Development Goals (especially around education, maternal and newborn health, and financing for development); and
• clear and unambiguous leadership on action to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and in particular a major initiative on stimulating the creation of green jobs, including just transition for those currently working in high carbon jobs so that their work can become low/no carbon, or so that they can move to low/no carbon jobs.

I attach a copy of the Global Unions' statement to the G8 Summit that provides detailed proposals building on the London Summit commitments by introducing a job-centred global recovery and sustainable growth plan that: maintains and creates jobs and strengthens incomes; fixes the financial and taxation systems; improves global governance; strengthens commitments to development; and generates green jobs and an ambitious global deal to tackle climate change.

BRENDAN BARBER

General Secretary