The global union movement is calling on the labor ministers of the world’s top economies, known as the G-20, to create millions of new jobs around the world. In a statement prepared for the labor ministers meeting next week in Paris, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) and Global Unions say 110 million jobs are needed by 2015 just to return G-20 countries to pre-crisis levels. That’s 22 million new jobs every year. Read the global unions’ statement here.

“Stretching from China to Chile, we’re seeing the longest unemployment line the world has ever seen,” says ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Workers, not bankers, will drive the world out of the economic crisis. Big Business is using the economic crisis as a smokescreen to push down wages. Collective bargaining rights are the most effective antidote to greed and will foster growth. Workers know first-hand why it’s important to have a decent wage, and a strong and vibrant business.

The financial crisis pushed more than 80 million more people into extreme poverty, and many are left without a safety net. G-20 labor and employment ministers have a moral and economic responsibility to strengthen social protection systems in all G-20 countries, the statement says.

The unions are:

• Insisting that their governments develop alternative sources of finance to provide funding for employment policies, including making domestic taxation more progressive, combating tax evasion and tax havens and introducing a financial transactions tax.
• Urging governments to set up investment in infrastructure and green jobs, skills development and other active labor market policies;
• Calling for a G-20 “Youth Pact” guaranteeing young people quality employment or education and training.

TUAC General Secretary John Evans says plans to encourage employment by G-20 labor ministers will fail unless there is a co-ordinated approach with finance ministers and G-20 leaders.

After prematurely moving away from supporting growth to deficit reduction, G-20 governments must now muster the same level of collective political will used to bail out the banks. They need to launch a co-ordinated recovery effort to secure jobs for teachers, nurses, construction workers and other crucial sectors of the economy.