TUAC NEWS

dc ej es g8 gf mt sd tu


Trade Union Leaders Attending OECD Forum and Ministerial Council to Press for Action on Job creation and Reducing Income Inequality

30/04/2014

  • Agenda of the TUAC Plenarypdf
  • TUAC Statement to the MCM_English Versionpdf
  • TUAC Statement to the MCM_French Versionpdf

Trade Union leaders from around the globe will attend the OECD Forum and the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) as key speakers, as well as the TUAC Plenary Session in Paris, on May 5 – 7.

The full agenda of the TUAC Plenary Session is posted in the side-bar.

Click here for an overview of Trade Union speakers at Forum Sessions and here for the agenda of the MCM.

For updates throughout the OECD week, follow us on Twitter via @TUACOECD

The TUAC just released its official Statement to the MCM pointing to the key policy issues at stake that Ministers at the meeting should address. The document is posted to the side-bar for download.

Six years into the crisis, unemployment in the OECD area remains above 46 million in 2014. We are faced with a 62 million global “jobs gap”. Young women and men are particularly scarred - worldwide, over 75 million people under 25 are out of work. Income inequality is on the rise, leaving low- and middle income households most affected by the effects of misguided crisis management. Economic growth and social cohesion will suffer profoundly from such income and employment gaps if not dealt with over the medium-term. Lack in decisive policy actions of OECD members on this, but also on financial regulation and responsible investment practices, needs to be addressed during this OECD Week. We remain faced with 4 fundamental problems that are on the verge of becoming structural: continued long-term unemployment and low wages; insufficient public investment and a weakened public sector.

Among the 70 labour representatives from OECD and non-OECD member countries that will be attending all the events, key speakers at the meetings include: 

  • Richard Trumka, TUAC President and President AFLCIO, United States
  • Nobuaki Koga, TUAC Vice-President and President RENGO, Japan
  • Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
  • Philip Jennings, General Secretary of UNI Global Union
  • John Evans, General Secretary of TUAC
  • Marie-Louise Knuppert, TUAC Vice-President and Elected Secretary LO-Denmark
  • Reiner Hoffman, Executive Board member, DGB, Germany
  • William Spriggs, Chief Economist AFLCIO, United States

The OECD Forum and Ministerial Council Meeting come at the right time to reassess policies and find new approaches to fair, sustainable and resilient growth. The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) has invited representatives of national and global trade union centres to the meetings as speakers and participants to push for such policy shift.

TUAC is specifically asking for coordinated action to accelerate “recovery” through increased investment in quality job creation, infrastructure, green growth and sustainable development, an OECD Youth Jobs Pact, the structural separation of too-big-to-fail banks, the implementation of the OECD BEPS Action Plan and a strategy for socially sustainable global value chains. Inclusive societies can only come about through reduced income inequality, and a decrease in precarious, informal or irregular work through collective bargaining and social dialogue.