TUC calls for key role for Global Jobs Pact and Robin Hood Tax at UN summit

TUC letter to Deputy Prime Minister

UN Millennium Development Goals review summit: 20-22 September 2010

August 2010

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has written to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who will be leading the UK delegation to the UN Summit to review progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in September, calling for a clear plan to reach the MDGs by 2015, for the endorsement of the ILO's Global Jobs Pact as an essential element of the campaign to end global poverty, and the use of Financial Transaction Taxes to raise the money needed.

The TUC letter is part of a global union lobbying campaign - see the ITUC's submission to the UN summit and the executive summary - and backs up the call from UK civil society (including the TUC) for urgent action on the Millennium Development Goals.

The TUC's letter reads:

United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, New York, 20-22 September 2010

The TUC and our global trade union colleagues in the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) attach great importance to the outcome of the UN General Assembly Summit which you will be attending. We welcome the outreach that the Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell MP is carrying out with civil society, in which the TUC is involved, and I am copying this letter to him.

Given that this General Assembly Summit will mark five years from the target date of 2015 for the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we believe that the Outcome Document being negotiated by Member States for adoption at the Summit should decisively commit all governments to, in the words of the UN Secretary-General, 'Keeping the Promise' of significantly reducing poverty, hunger, unemployment and underemployment, of addressing lack of access to education, health care and social protection for many in developing countries, and of reversing climate degradation by 2015.

I attach the ITUC Statement to the Summit. It presents a set of key Recommendations that, as its title states, constitute 'A Breakthrough Plan to Accelerate Progress in Achieving the MDGs by 2015.' It is fully supported by the TUC and I would welcome your views about its proposals. The ITUC represents working people around the world, including, of course, in the global south, with 312 member organisations in 156 countries and territories.

The Recommendations are summarised in an Executive Summary which is also attached. In particular, we ask you to:

• support our proposals for the adoption of a new policy approach in the Outcome Document, one focused on measures for fair, demand-led, redistributive growth and prioritising full and productive employment and decent work as well as a universal social protection floor;
• support the inclusion of the ILO Global Jobs Pact as a policy framework for achieving MDG1 on poverty eradication, as an indispensable starting point for achieving all the MDGs; and
• support and make a commitment to measures for stable, predictable financing of the MDGs, including through a Financial Transactions Tax.

Please take these Recommendations fully into account in your negotiations towards the Summit Outcome Document. I hope you agree with me as to their importance and I look forward to receiving your views. We look forward to continued engagement with you and Andrew Mitchell in the run up to the Summit.

Yours sincerely

BRENDAN BARBER

General Secretary