Labour cautions G20 countries on jobless growth

The PSI scribe who disclosed this in Abuja at the Labour House headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said the PSI is involved in the global labour matters in conjunction with the International Labour Organization (ILO), adding that adopting jobless solutions to curb the economic crunch could be disastrous to the working people globally.

His words: “As a global organisation we are working in alliance with the International Labour Organization (ILO) where we have been actively involved in the past few years in the development of the Global Job Pact which seeks to commit governments and employers, trade unions or the workers to a development that could create jobs in the future. It also includes the commitment of governments to invest in the creation of new jobs. We are also focussing on what is going on within the G20 and we are calling on them to take specific measures and avoid others that may be detrimental to the interests of workers because not everything that is being done to curb the impacts of the global economic crunch will be in the interests of the working people globally. We at PSI insist that if governments around the world want to learn something from the economic meltdown, that thing must be that everything cannot be left to the market forces to determine. So, if they are desirous of doing something tangible in the long term, then it must ensure that there is massive investment also in the sustainability of sufficiency in the training and re-training opportunities for the working people. The lack of opportunities in some countries is encouraging workers to move to countries where these opportunities exist and that has resulted into migration.”

Waldoff stated that governments around the world bailing out the banks have impacted negatively on the public.

He insisted that for Public Service around the world, global economic revival should be about jobs and about investment in the quality in public services to compensate for the jobs that have been lost in other sectors.

“Many might say that we do not have the money for the investment but on the other hand we can say that if we are losing many young people who will not have education then we likely going to lack people in the future who will be able to take up positions that required skills and competencies. Another issue for us is the need for us to focus on the Millennium Development Goals because meeting it could be jeopardised if there is no enough investment in health, clean water, the environment by governments around the world,” he said.

Waldoff added that PSI is working together at the global level with its affiliates to defend the rights of public employees and creating better public services for the people via good bureaucracy that is devoid of corruption.

He hinted that the purpose of his visit to the NLC was to further reconfirm the cooperation between the PSI and Congress.

On his part, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Abdulwahed Omar lauded the PSI for being a stabilising factor within the global trade union movement and pledged the continued working relationship between Congress and PSI for the mutual benefits of the two bodies.