04/11/2011
- L20 B20 Statementpdf
- L20 B20 StatementFRpdf
The B20 (business organisations of the G20 countries)
and the L20 (trade union organisations of the G20 countries)
express their deep concern at the gravity of the world economic
situation: workers and companies face global market instability,
including deepening unemployment and uncertainty in the labour
market, and economic perspectives do not suggest any improvement.
We therefore wish to seize the opportunity of social issues being
put on the agenda of the G20 to draw the attention of governments
to some major issues on which they have developed a common vision.
The economic, social and financial crisis has indeed created space
for discussing labour market and social protection challenges in a
comparative perspective, within the G20. We think that a proper
exchange of views in the G20, between the social partners and the
governments, can help to tackle these issues and also help non-G20
countries to develop policies to address the employment situation
in all its dimensions. We urge the G20 to make these issues a
priority in order to reduce unemployment and prevent the risk of a
growing share of the population losing faith in the global economy.
In doing so, we echo the contribution of the International
Organization of Employers and of the International Trade Union
Confederation to the current debate on the same issues being held
at the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Employment
Both the B20 and the L20 recognise the efforts
made during the crisis by many governments to focus their action on
the protection and the development of productive employment.
However with the decline of growth across most of the G20 and
worsening unemployment, priority now has to be put firmly on
creating an environment conducive to enterprise and job creation.
Policies implemented with G20 coordination and by G20 leaders
should be consistent with this overarching aim. In order to achieve
this, we support the mission of a G20 Task Force on employment,
along the lines agreed by the G20 Labour Ministers in September
2011.
The situation of young people is particularly
alarming in almost all countries, both developed and developing.
Urgent efforts from governments and social partners are needed to
provide real jobs, including apprenticeships and internships linked
with training opportunities that provide qualifications, deepen
work related skills and improve employability. We call on the G20
to make the youth employment situation their priority, and we are
willing to contribute. Targets such as youth employment,
entrepreneurship, the greening of jobs and the fight against the
informal economy could be shared issues that the G20 might be
willing to peer review.
Social protection
Business and workers’ representatives have joint
interest in the creation or the reinforcement of social protection,
on the basis of strong shared principles. The discussion on the
social protection floor in the International Labour Office in 2011
has shown that agreement exists on those
principles.
The B20 and the L20 draw the attention of the
governments gathered in Cannes on 3-4 November 2011 to the key
elements that can make nationally-defined social protection floors
relevant in all countries. This includes planning to ensure the
sustainable financing of social protection floors nationally, the
help that international organisations can provide in the capacity
building necessary for implementation, the role of international
assistance in establishing social protection floors where none
exist, the benefit of drawing conclusions from the experience of
countries having defined sustainable social protection nets, the
introduction of incentives to encourage formalisation of the
economy and employment, the importance of both a demographic and a
rights based approach to social protection and the need to design
the floors preferably after consultation of social
partners.
Fundamental principles and rights at
work
The implementation of fundamental principles and
rights at work is a responsibility of governments. Various ILO
tools exist to achieve concrete improvements, including the 1998
ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and
its follow-up.
As regards the B20 and the L20, we will
contribute to the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
adopted by the Council of Human Rights of the UN last June and we
recognise the relevance and usefulness of other international
instruments on multinational enterprises including the ILO
Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational
Enterprises and Social policy. The ILO Declaration does not only
cover the fundamen-tal principles and rights at work, it also deals
with matters such as employment promotion, safety and health,
conditions of work and training. We therefore want to re-emphasise
its importance and will support its promo-tion through our
respective constituents in the G20 as an important means to build
confidence in the actions of companies and to try and deliver
concrete results in terms of competitiveness and for the
people
Coherence of actions in the multilateral
system
In recent years, some international
organisations, including the ILO, the International Monetary Fund,
the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, have increased
their cooperation and joint research in domains which sometimes
overlap. They have engaged in a number of structured joint projects
on the ground. We can only ap-prove such efforts to link their
actions, and to achieve more effective results.
The B20 and L20 think that in addition to
cooperation agreements signed between the International Labour
Of-fice and other organisations, concrete work between these bodies
should be fostered, for instance on pilot joint projects
voluntarily involving countries most hit by the crisis, or on
particular items such as youth employment and social protection
floors. Cooperation involving the ILO has the further advantage of
enabling the contribution of the social partners as provided for
under the constitution of the Organisation.