International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

By Özlem Onaran and Cem Oyvat - International Trade Union Confederation, February 6, 2023

The study simulated the impact that public spending increases in the care economy, the green economy, and infrastructure could have across eight countries.

The report shows that a repeated annual increase in public spending by 1% of GDP within these three sectors would yield major economic returns that exceed the initial level of investments made. The findings reveal that:

• Investing an extra 1% of GDP in the care economy over five years would yield an average GDP increase of more than 11%, as well as a 6.3% increase in total employment levels.
• An extra 1% of GDP investment in the green economy over five years would yield an average GDP increase of 10%, as well as a 7.5% increase in total employment levels.
• An extra 1% of GDP on infrastructure investment over five years would increase both employment and GDP levels by 12% on average.

Owen Tudor, ITUC Deputy General Secretary, stressed: “The lingering employment effects of Covid-19, as well as a rapidly changing world of work, have underscored the urgency of addressing employment deficits and inequalities. Governments must step up their investments to support the creation of quality jobs – especially in strategic sectors that are good for both people and the planet including care, infrastructure and the green economy.”

At the global level, trade unions are calling for the creation of 575 million jobs and the formalisation of at least one billion informal jobs by 2030, to enable delivery of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda commitment for full employment and decent work under Sustainable Development Goal 8.

Read the report (Link).

By Chloe DS and Nataliya Levytska - Green Left, November 23, 2022

Nataliya Levytska is deputy chairperson of the Independent Mineworkers Union of Ukraine. She is in Australia as a Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) delegate to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) World Congress, where she is seeking support for Ukrainian unionists resisting Russia’s war of aggression.

During her visit, Geelong Trades Hall Council president Tim Gooden presented Levytska with three emergency radios on behalf of the council as its contribution to the struggle of Ukrainian unions facing permanent bombardment of communications and electricity infrastructure by invading Russian forces.

Levytska also spoke to Green Left’s Chloe DS about the situation of Ukrainian trade unions.

What can you tell us about the trade union movement in Ukraine?

I represent the KVPU, which is the second-largest union confederation in Ukraine. KVPU was established at the time of Ukraine’s independence, but its first affiliates were established during the miners' strikes that occurred during the times of the USSR [in the late 1980s].

The Ukrainian trade union movement united about 6 million workers. But now, due to the war, this number has decreased because Russia has destroyed enterprises and infrastructure, resulting in the loss of workplaces.

Russia has also destroyed residential buildings and hospitals, and imposed a reign of terror in the occupied territories, forcing people to flee and become refugees.

Prior to the invasion, Ukrainian trade unions fought for wage increases and better working conditions, and demanded the implementation of international labour standards. We confronted several attempts to undermine workers’ and union rights. Thanks to campaigns, protest actions and negotiations with the government, we stopped those attacks.

The KVPU and its affiliated organisations use different tools to defend workers' rights, including protests, work-to-rule actions, collective bargaining and submitting lawsuits. Even now, during the war, we have won cases in courts. For example, two weeks ago the Supreme Court of Ukraine ruled in favour of a Wizz Air union member in their illegal dismissal case.

However, due to the war, we are limited in our options. For example, we can campaign but we cannot hold protest actions.

By staff - International Trade Union Confederation, November 21, 2022

Governments from the global south finally achieved a long fought for agreement to establish a fund to compensate “loss and damage” from climate change related events in developing countries.. The challenge is now to provide the necessary finance for the fund and to make it operational by COP28.

The trade union movement welcomes the establishment of a work program on just transition. The “Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan” asserts that Just Transition is founded on Social Dialogue.

Sharan Burrow, outgoing ITUC General Secretary, said: “Workers must have a place at the table for a transition that stabilises the planet, economies and our societies. Transition plans need to include both climate and employment plans. That requires unions to be involved and own the process, otherwise we risk stoking the fear of those who feel left behind and left out of decision making.”

Inclusion of social protection a major step forward

Eric Manzi, ITUC-Africa Deputy General Secretary, said: “To build resilience for workers, families and communities, comprehensive and universal social protection systems are needed. We need to see the funds to ensure those systems can deliver unemployment benefits and fundamental health services.

“In Africa, funds are desperately needed for transition skills training and ensuring informal jobs become formalised decent jobs with social protection. This is the way to deliver for workers in poor and rich countries alike.”

Unions regret the absence of commitments by countries to respect labour rights and human rights. The right to free trade unions, collective bargaining and occupational health and safety are essential to ensure a Just Transition.

The reluctance of countries to specifically guarantee the respect of human rights is a major concern for the labour movement. Ambitious climate policies can only be successful if there is trust that rights are respected for everyone.

On climate mitigation the result is very disappointing. Countries are backtracking on their commitment at COP26 in Scotland to phase down coal. The door is opened for “low-emission” energy instead of focussing fully on renewable energy.

Sharan Burrow said: “On market mechanisms we see the continuing undermining of the objectives of the Paris Agreement by proposals that allow double counting and unsustainable removal technologies. Stepping up mitigation ambition must be a major priority for COP28. The challenge will be how the incoming UAE COP28 Presidency will deal with that.”

By staff - International Trade Union Confederation, September 29, 2022

‘Charting a Course Towards Universal Social Protection: Resilience, Equity and Opportunity for All’, also known as the Social Protection and Jobs (SPJ) Compass, published 29 September, sets out the Bank’s position on how social protection systems should be reformed and extended and outlines the priorities for the Bank’s work in this area in the coming years.

Ensuring universal social protection is a longstanding priority for the ITUC and the international labour movement as a whole. The ITUC shares the reports objectives for fostering greater equity, resilience and opportunity, and agrees with the Bank that the lack of social protection for the majority of the world’s workers in the informal economy is a challenge that needs to be urgently addressed.

The ITUC equally welcomes the fact that the Compass stresses the need to improve the adequacy of benefits to ensure adequate livelihoods for workers, as well as the availability and quality of key services, including care services for children, older people and people with disabilities.

The ITUC appreciates the emphasis in the Compass on the need to strengthen social protection financing, at the domestic and international levels, and acknowledges that the World Bank is one of the largest providers of official development assistance (ODA) for social protection; support that has increased substantially over recent years.

By staff - International Trade Union Confederation, July 18, 2022

The Ministerial Declaration of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) contains many key workers’ demands. But more ambition is needed to rescue the SDGs with a New Social Contract.

This year’s HLPF focused on “building back better” from Covid-19, while moving towards the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Although the Sustainable Development Goal on Inclusive Growth, Productive Employment and Decent Work (SDG 8) was not reviewed at this edition of the Forum, trade unions welcome that the centrality of its targets has been reflected by governments in the HLPF Ministerial Declaration, supporting key workers’ demands for a new social contract centred on SDG 8:

• Governments highlight the “urgent need to create conditions for decent work for all, protect labour rights of all workers and achieve universal social protection”, as well as the need to “ensure just transitions that promote sustainable development and eradication of poverty, and the creation of decent work” with direct reference to the role of the UN Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions, as requested by the ITUC.
• Trade unions particularly welcome governments recognition of the role of social dialogue in designing policies to guarantee equal access for women to decent work and quality jobs in all sectors and at all levels, including through “ensuring equal pay for work of equal value, (…) ensuring the safety of all women in the world of work, and promoting the right to organise and bargain collectively”. The Declaration also identifies "improved wages, working conditions and social protection” as key to recognising and rewarding women’s disproportionate share of care and domestic work, and calls for gender-responsive social protection policies and care services.
• Trade unions welcome the objective to adopt education and lifelong learning strategies and budgets that ensure gender equality and prioritise skills development and decent employment of young people.

While trade unions are pleased with these important recommendations, they are concerned that the declaration does not reflect the urgency needed to rise to the challenge of achieving the 2030 Agenda.

As the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated: “We are far from powerless. (…) We have the knowledge, the science, the technology and the financial resources to reverse the trajectory.”

Halfway to 2030, trade unions believe in the world’s ability and responsibility to change course.

Trade unions therefore urge governments to come together and build a New Social Contract centred on SDG 8 putting in place job creation plans, labour rights, universal social protection, minimum statutory living wages with collective bargaining, equality and inclusion.

The time to rescue the SDGs is now.

By staff - IndustriALL, June 16, 2022

On 7 June, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), LO Norway and IndustriALL held a second workshop on wind technology as part of the Just Transition and the energy sector initiative. The initiative provides a platform for unions around the world to exchange information on energy transition technologies and the jobs, skills, markets, investments, and emissions related to them.

Workers want good jobs and just transition in the energy sector. This workshop looked at offshore and onshore wind technology, which employers and government see as a potential pathway for oil and gas companies to diversify their assets and bring down emissions. The information is not always easy to get but unions want to see how many jobs there are, when they will come, what kind of jobs they will be, what kinds of skills workers will need for these jobs, and the transition that workers will be faced with.

To get a better view of what the future holds, participants looked at the value chains of oil and gas, and onshore and offshore wind, breaking both value chains down to production, processing, distribution, and end-use (upstream, midstream, downstream).

By Anna Markova - Trades Union Caucus, June 10, 2022

As Egypt prepares to take over the COP27 presidency and countries gather for the Bonn Climate Conference, trade unions are calling for Egypt to end its repression of workers, trade unions and activists.

How is a just transition or safe climate future to be agreed in Sharm El-Sheikh in November while the Egyptian government imprisons thousands of trade unionists, journalists and civil society organisers? 

The TUC is calling on the UK government and specifically the outgoing COP26 President Alok Sharma to use his influence to seek assurances for the freedom and safety of Egyptian trade unionists and human rights activists prior to COP27. This should involve immediate action to secure the release of British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah, currently on hunger strike. 

Egypt has regularly ranked in the lowest categories of the ITUC’s Global Rights Index when it comes to trade union rights and freedoms. In the ITUC’s 2021 Global Rights Index Egypt was listed in the worst ten countries for workers.

By Les Levidow - Greener Jobs Alliance, June 7, 2022

The Just Transition concept has sought to avoid socially unjust means and consequences of a low-carbon transition. Alternatives could provide the basis for a common agenda of the labour movement. Yet trade unions have had divergent perspectives on decarbonisation pathways, especially as regards the potential role of technological solutions. 

Such conflict has focused on Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). This is favourably called ‘carbon abatement’ or pejoratively called a ‘technofix’. As one reason for US trade-unions supporting CCS and thus the fossil fuel industry, often they have achieved relatively greater job security and wages there; such gains may seem jeopardised by substituting renewable energy.

UK CCS agendas focus on the prospect to decarbonise natural gas into hydrogen. This agenda unites the UK ‘energy unions’ with their members’ employers, as a cross-class alliance for a CCS fix. From a critical perspective, this seeks to accumulate capital by perpetuating natural gas, while undermining or delaying its renewable competitors.

Trade-union divergences have arisen in many ways. For a Just Transition, ITUC has advocated phasing out ‘unabated coal’, implying that coal with CCS could continue indefinitely. In the name of climate justice, the TUC has advocated CCS as a means to continue fossil fuels within a ‘balanced energy’ policy. By contrast, according to the PCS, CCS ‘is not yet a proven technology at scale’, and we don’t have the luxury to wait; it counterposes a strategy of energy democracy.

Such political divergences within the labour movement have arisen around Just Transition proposals at TUC conferences, likewise around agendas for a Green New Deal. In 2019 these were promoted within the US Democratic Party and UK Labour Party. Both underwent internal conflicts over decarbonisation pathways, expressing conflicts within the labour movement. 

By staff - IndustriALL Global Union, May 12, 2022

On 5 May, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), LO Norway and IndustriALL held a first workshop on hydrogen technology as part of the Just Transition and the Energy Sector initiative. The initiative provides a platform for unions around the world to exchange information on energy transition technologies and the jobs, skills, markets, investments, and emissions related to them.

There is no single industry that could replace the oil and gas industry, in terms of jobs and in terms of income. We must consider multiple different technologies when thinking about where jobs are going to transition to,”

said Kenneth Sandmo, Head of business and Industry Policy in the Norwegian Trade Union Confederation (LO Norway).

Putting it into perspective, Sandmo explained that Norway’s oil and gas industry employs more than 200,000 workers directly and indirectly. As the hydrogen sector is projected to create approximately 35,000 jobs in Norway, hydrogen technology shouldn’t be the only focus for trade unions.

Hydrogen technology is key for the long-term decarbonisation of energy intensive industries and sectors such as heavy transport. To get a better view of where jobs are and where they could be, the workshop looked at the value chains of oil and gas and hydrogen. Breaking both value chains down to production, processing, distribution, and end use (upstream, midstream, downstream) provided a clearer view of where the jobs are, and where there is a future for workers to transition in the hydrogen value chain.

By staff - International Trade Union Confederation, May 4, 2022

ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said: “This report lays out a stark reality: global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak before 2025, and we have to cut emissions by 43% by 2030 to give us a chance to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

“That’s a lot, but the report says that solar and wind energy have the potential to deliver over one-third of this target.

“It’s unavoidable: the world needs rapid, deep and immediate investments in jobs to build this infrastructure and deliver the cuts to emissions we need.

“At the same time, the report is clear that we have to leave the oil and gas in the ground to survive. We need fossil fuel infrastructure and subsidies to be repurposed.

“This requires just transition: a plan to convert these jobs in fossil fuels to jobs in clean energy. Every country, every industry, every company, and every investor must have a plan developed, in partnership with working people and their communities, and must implement it rapidly.

“Our report with the World Resources Institute and the New Climate Economy showed that this shift makes economic and social sense too. Investing in solar power creates 1.5 times as many jobs as investing the same amount of money in fossil fuels.

“The IPPC has sounded a call to action for jobs in renewables. Investors, companies and governments need to make this a reality now. We know that for every ten jobs in renewable energy, there are another five to ten in manufacturing supply chains and, if these are good jobs with just wages, 30 to 35 jobs in the broader community.”

The IPPC report makes clear the transformational potential of just transition, saying it can “build social trust, and deepen and widen support for transformative changes”. It goes on to say: “This is already taking place in many countries and regions, as national just transition commissions or task forces, and related national policies, have been established in several countries. A multitude of actors, networks, and movements are engaged.”

Sharan Burrow added: “We need unions at the table everywhere to build these plans and to guarantee income support for secure pensions, reskilling and re-deployment.”