7 October, 2009International Metalworkers' Federation joins global unions in call for secure employment as the essential response to the global economic crisis on this World Day for Decent Work.
GLOBAL: Metalworkers around the world are participating in the World Day for Decent Work today calling for an end to precarious employment and joining the International Trade Union Confederation in its call for getting the world to work.
In the continuing fallout from the global financial crisis, millions of workers in precarious employment have lost their jobs. For employers, cutting temporary and agency jobs has proven to be a cheap and easy way of reducing their workforce. But for workers it has resulted in hardship, uncertainty and a complete lack of control over their working lives.
As economies begin to recover, there is a real risk that companies will increase their dependence on temporary jobs, replacing jobs that were once permanent with precarious jobs.
The importance of employment in the recovery is the subject of a new ITUC report released on this World Day for Decent Work. Jobs - The Path to Recovery, How employment is central to ending the global crisis describes how in response to the global economic crisis, the worst since the Great Depression with tens of millions of jobs disappearing, the economy must be built on social justice and environmental sustainability, respect for internationally-recognised workers' rights, effective financial regulation and global governance which puts people first.
Global unions, including the International Metalworkers' Federation, have been calling on governments to focus on jobs in response to the crisis. At the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh last month global unions warned that the full ripple effect of the year-old crisis is only now being felt as tens of millions of jobs are cut, with a forecast of more job losses to occur in 2010 and 2011.
The G20 Leaders' Statement, available on the IMF website here, offers some positive prospects for workers, but regrettably begins with the self-congratulatory assumption that the worst is over and recovery is in sight.
The ITUC/TUAC evaluation of the 3rd G20 Summit indicates that the results of the Summit "represented some advance on the outcome of the April Summit in London but also demonstrated a degree of complacency and progress was slow in some crucial areas". A full copy of the evaluation is published on the IMF website here.
"The IMF joins the ITUC and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD in expressing deep concern for what seems to continue being a dangerous underestimation of the employment issue, in terms of both job losses and deterioration of the employment conditions everywhere in the world," said IMF general Secretary Jyrki Raina.
"Around the world, the IMF, metal unions and their members are mobilizing, organizing and bargaining for secure jobs and equal rights for all workers" he said.
To read the full ITUC report Jobs - The Path to Recovery, How employment is central to ending the global crisis:
http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/Finacial_crisis_EN-final.pdf
http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/Financial_crisis_DE.pdf
http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/Financial_crisis_FR.pdf
http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/Financial_crisis_ES.pdf
To read the ITUC/TUAC evaluation of the 3rd G20 Summit: