Here is the speech I gave this afternoon at the Plenary Session of the ILO Conference.
Click here to access the video of my speech: Download PW_speech_ILC2009
"I address you in the midst of one of the most profound economic and social recessions that the world has witnessed. The ILO projects that as many as 239 million people will have lost their jobs before the end of this year. The number of unemployed young people is expected to rise by 11 to 17 million. And women workers, who so often make the difference in lifting households out of poverty, will suffer disproportionately. This is a crisis that was created not by the working class, but by financial elite. Yet it is ordinary working people that are being made to bear the brunt.
In Puerto Rico, the Government plans to dismiss 40,000 public servants as part of its ‘fiscal austerity measures’. In Ecuador, the government proposes to remove the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers. In Latvia, the government has slashed public sector wages by 50 percent. This is reflected in Asia and Africa. Public sector pay and pensions across the globe are under attack.
I ask you, how can measures designed to increase unemployment and reduce vital public services help lift us out of this crisis?
While Governments in the North dug deep into their pockets to bail out not just the banks, but also the bankers who had brought the global financial market to its knees, they were slow to react to protect the real economy and the jobs of ordinary citizens.
It is time for a new model of globalisation.
One that puts people first.
One that shifts the focus from capital to labour.
One with decent work, social justice and quality public services for all at its heart.
The neo-liberal experiment of the last 30 years has ended in abject failure. It has deepened inequalities, widened social divides, sown conflict, increased poverty in the global South and weakened the capacity of developing countries to provide basic services for their people.
Yet there are those who cling to the belief that this crisis is a ‘temporary blip’ and that the markets will correct themselves. Those who cling to the notion of the small state; of deregulated markets; of limited employment and social protection.
Let us be clear: there can be no more business as usual.
There can be no retreat from collective bargaining, from social dialogue or from International Labour Standards. Organised labour is not part of the problem, but key to the solution.
And in PSI we strongly support the “Employee Free Choice Act” in the United States. The adoption of this new legislation will send the right signal to the rest of the world.
Not least of all Colombia, which continues to be the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists. During this Conference alone, 3 more trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia. An unacceptable situation.
As we move towards a post crisis era, a new consensus is needed. International financial institutions must abandon conditionalities and adjustment programmes that have plunged developing countries deeper into poverty and robbed millions of young people of a decent future.
The role of the state as regulator must be strengthened.
As must the role of the state in development.
To repeat the words of the Commission on Growth and Development, “No country has sustained rapid growth without high rates of public investment in infrastructure, education and health. Markets alone will not produce the growth in developing countries that will lift them out of poverty”.
PSI firmly supports the call for a Global Jobs Pact. The challenges posed by climate change must be a central part of this policy response, just as must trade, health, education, water and food security.
Now is not the time to shy away from commitments to the Millennium Development goals, but to redouble efforts to achieve them. Action on gender equality must not slip to the bottom of the list. PSI applauds the work of the Gender Equality Committee. We hope it will not be another 24 years before the ILO hosts another such discussion.
We welcome the work of the Committee of the Whole in seeking to develop a tripartite response to the global and economic crisis. The ILO is the right setting, the only setting, to develop sustainable solutions to this crisis.
We urge all social partners to find the courage for a new way forward.
To paraphrase a famous quote, “those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them”.
Let us learn the lesson.
I thank you."
