TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber is meeting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper today. He’s part of a delegation of trade union leaders from G20 countries, meeting the Canadian host of the G8 and G20 Leaders’ Meeting next weekend. His message will be that the jobs crisis isn’t over – either in developed countries like the UK or much of the developing world – and that public sector cuts should be avoided until the jobs come back. The UN estimates that 300 million new jobs are needed around the world. The global unions message is also the message of US President Obama.
On Friday 4 June, a joint delegation of European trade unions and employers met with the President of the European Commission to discuss the impact that cuts in public expenditure across Europe will have on employment. Unions and employers had agreed a joint declaration on the issue, which saw agreement that growth is the only sustainable solution to the problems of the budget deficits caused by the global financial and economic crisis. It is incredibly important that employers were willing to join the ETUC in calling for growth, thus rejecting the prevailing orthodoxy in Governments, the Commission and bodies like the OECD and IMF that cuts are the main priority. On the eve of the meeting, ETUC General Secretary John Monks warned that the current path risks repeating the errors of the 1930s, when co-ordinated cuts in public expenditure around the developed world turned the global recession into a profound depression. AS well as supporting growth and a sustainable industrial strategy, the ETUC is arguing for financial sector re-regulation, fiscal co-ordination and a financial transactions tax.
Just when you thought every international institution was joining the headlong rush to demand that Governments withdraw economic stimulus packages, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) hits back. Opening the summer conference with the publication of its annual report, Recovery and Growth with Decent Work, the ILO has broken with the malign consensus (or what Paul Krugman calls “conventional madness”). ILO Director General Juan Somavia says
“in response to pressure from financial markets, many countries are being pushed into stringent fiscal policies that jeopardize recovery, making it less likely that investments, growth, employment and wages will pick up in the short run or that tax revenues will recover any time soon. The end result is that deficits will become more difficult to reduce and debts more difficult to pay off. So why now, at this very uncertain time of weak recovery, should the sovereign debt issue, with such a sense of a gathering storm, become the major, urgent, overriding global policy priority for markets? This may not be in their own interests if it leads to greater economic contraction or even a double-dip recession. It was just such a response that helped to bring about the Great Depression of the 1930s.”
Minister of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Pat McFadden gives a keynote speech to Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009. Read more »
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber gives a keynote speech to Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009. Read more »
Presentations from a panel discussion at the TUC/Guardian Beyond Crisis conference. Monday 16 November 2009. Speakers are Lord Richard Layard (LSE), Andrew Simms (NEF), Glenis Wilmott MP. Chaired by Larry Elliot.
Presentations from a workshop session at Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009. Ann Pettifor and Richard Murphy, with Adam Lent chairing.
Presentations from a panel discussion at Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009. Speakers were John Kay (Financial Times columnist), Ann Pettifor (Advocacy International), Gillian Tett (Financial Times) and Dave Prentis (UNISON), with the TUC’s Frances O’Grady chairing.
Come the Minister, come the announcement: at the TUC’s Beyond Crisisconference today, Business Minister Pat McFadden announced the creation and first meeting of the new Forum for a Just Transition, the stakeholder body to oversee delivery of the Government’s low carbon industry strategy.
Brendan Barber told the 400 delegates that, ”The balance of power within the employment relationship – for so long tilted in favour of the employer – urgently needs recalibrating. And recognising that unions have a key role to play in leveling the playing field - an intelligent engagement between government, business and unions needs to become part of the political mainstream.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gives a keynote speech to Beyond Crisis, the TUC/Guardian conference on a progressive response to the financial crisis. 16 November 2009.
This is what I said to today’s Beyond Crisis conference organised by the TUC:
My argument today is pretty straightforward: there can be no going back to business as usual. Unless we build an economy that is fairer, greener and more equal, the next crisis we face will surely be even worse.
The status quo is not, cannot, and must not be an option: we need change that is progressive, radical and sweeping. But before I set out our economic vision for the long term, I want to say a few words about where we are now. Read more »
David Pitt-Watson will be speaking at Beyond Crisis, a TUC / Guardian one-day conference on progressive responses to the financial crisis on 16 Nov in Central London. Register for free tickets at www.tuc.org.uk/beyondcrisis
We are all understandably angry about banker’s bonuses and the seeming irresponsibility of the capital markets. They have cost us a fortune; in wealth, in jobs, in public spending. But railing against the capital markets won’t get us very far unless we have an alternative.
So here is the big question: “What should our capital markets look like? What functions should they carry out, and how would you judge if they are doing a good job?” Answer that, and we might get a better handle on how policy and action can create the world we want to see. Read more »
