Trade unions: G8 Summit must deliver on jobs

This week’s G8 Summit of World Leaders must deliver leadership to end the global jobs crisis, according to the world’s trade unions. Over 30 million people who lost their jobs due to the crisis are still unemployed. “Worldwide, employment has still not recovered from the 2008 financial fiasco, and too few governments are taking the jobs crisis seriously,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow, adding “the G8 and the G20 must lead the way to a surge in employment rather than the narrow and destructive focus on spending cuts which some countries are now following.”

The unions are calling on the G8 governments to meet their development aid promises, especially to Africa where the aid shortfall was a massive $14bn last year. They are also pointing to the backlash against poverty, corruption and incompetent economic strategies which triggered the “Arab Spring” and is likely to spread unless action is taken to generate decent jobs for tens of millions of young people around the world. “The backlash against dictatorships in the Arab countries arose out of the desperation of millions of young people facing a lifetime of unemployment. Many other countries, including democracies, have massive youth unemployment, and much wider social unrest is just around the corner unless governments face up to the task of job creation,” said TUAC General Secretary John Evans.

The trade unions are also insisting on a renewed push to tackle climate change, and for special action to assist Japan’s recovery from the devastating human and economic impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

For more information, see statement adopted at the OECD-TUAC meeting in Paris on 23 May 2011.