Global unions provide strategies for recovery

GLOBAL: On the eve of the April meeting of the Group of 20 in London Global Union Federations have released  a special publication "Getting the World to work: Global Union Strategies for Recovery."

The joint publication is the result of  work by all Global Union Federations together with the International Trade Union Confederation and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.

Each organisation has contributed  their vision on the ways to recover from the world economic crisis and to make changes in the world system to prevent it from happening again.

In the preface to the publication Aidan White, editor of the publication and the General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, writes: "At this critical moment, trade unions are mobilising. They have developed a vision for the world economy that goes beyond tinkering with regulation and repairing broken models of free trade".

The publication represents a collection of visions of unions speaking on behalf of workers employed in different sectors of world economy. All of them are united with the idea of the necessity to revise the current global financial system so as to provide workers and their families with a fair and sustainable global economy based on humanitarian values serving future generations as a strong basis for development.

"The crisis can be resolved and a return to decency is possible, but that will not happen unless we give voice to those at work," writes Marcello Malentacchi, IMF General Secretary in his article 'Decency for a change'.

" That involves making sure that the right to organize and the right to bargaining are the foundation stones of a new economic and social structure that will provide us with the means to ensure that we are never again held hostage by slick and shady global marketeers."

The publication in English is posted on the Global Unions website http://www.global-unions.org/spip.php?article253, French and Spanish translations will follow shortly.