Unions fear 50m jobs may be lost

http://www.theage.com.au/national/unions-fear-50m-jobs-may-be-lost-20090319-93fg.html

Daniel Flitton
March 20, 2009
UNIONS fear that unless world leaders agree soon on a plan to stimulate the global economy, the worsening financial contagion will cost well over 50 million jobs worldwide.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow will lead an international trade union delegation to next month's G20 leaders' summit in London, calling for co-ordinated stimulus packages to lift economic growth.

"You've got to look at where you can drive stimulus that will target employment growth, most efficiently, most speedily, and with a capacity to influence not just national economies, but indeed the global economy," she said.

Global unemployment was put at 190 million last year, with an average jobless rate around the world of 6 per cent.




The International Labour Organisation warned earlier this year of a 1.4 per cent jump in global unemployment. But unions now worry that such estimates seem too optimistic.

In a statement to be presented to G20 leaders, unions will argue that the stimulus packages announced since the crisis began would have had twice the impact if they had been better co-ordinated.

They are also pushing to bring the ILO into the G20 leaders' summit to ensure that promoting job growth is a key concern.

Fears about a slide towards protectionist measures will also be at the top of the summit's agenda. Australia has warned that G20 leaders have already lost some credibility on a pledge last year to keep open markets, despite the financial downturn.

But Ms Burrow said governments must support strategic sectors of the economy to help solve the crisis.

"You have to be careful when you're talking about not becoming protectionist — which I support, we live in a global economy — that you're not actually also ruling out sensible measures that would provide for maintaining robust demand," she told The Age.

"Economics 101 says if you maintain demand, if you maintain jobs, then your contribution to a global economy will be more robust than if your own domestic economy is going down the tube."

Ms Burrow, who also heads the International Trade Union Confederation, will take part in a march through London to highlight campaigns against poverty and climate change.

She said the G20 had emerged as a serious body to tackle the crisis and leaders had the opportunity in London to build a new institutions to support the global economy. "If you step back from it, and absent the crisis, it is historic potentially in terms of the emergence of the global architecture," she said.

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