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The Labour 20 is being launched, the G20 of trade unions

Gerardo Martínez, General Secretary of the building industry presides over this engagement group, that together with the B20 of businesspeople, is one of the most important of the forum. "We have to highlight what world we want, one on the basis of the financial business exclusively or one with a productive economy which creates jobs, he assured in an interview with Infobae.

The Labour 20 (L20) gathers leaders of the international trade unions so that the perspectives of workers from all over the world may reach the G20, the main international forum for the economic, financial and politic cooperation and in which Argentina takes part, and which this year, is also presiding over. 

This engagement group has become important since the crisis of 2008, when the first summit of Heads of State of the forum was carried out, but it was formally recognized in 2011, under the presidency of France. It will be led by the Argentinean Building Workers Union (UOCRA) during the Argentine management of the G20. The General Secretary, Gerardo Martínez, is the chairman of the group.

In an interview with Infobae, the trade unionist explained that in 2008, the social actors who participate in the tripartite dialogue of the International Labour Organization (ILO), of both the employing and the union sector, proposed to have an active and effective participation: "It was no easy to achieve it, the G20 did not want to incorporate the social actors as protagonists and it took a long talk in each meeting until they formally included us and the B20 (Business 20, business people group)".

According to UOCRA General Secretary, the crisis of 2008 was the key "because when the financial system collapsed, the public resources prevented the fall of the system. “;;We have to highlight what world we want, one on the basis of the financial business exclusively or one with a productive economy which creates jobs".

This afternoon, at the headquarters of the building union, the work agenda for the whole 2018 will be presented. In addition to Martínez, the Argentinean Sherpa (representative of the government to the G20) Pedro Villagra Delgado, and the union representatives Juan Carlos Schimid, Héctor Daer and Andrés Rodríguez, for the GTA: Adolfo Aguirre from the autonomous CTA led by Pablo Micheli and Roberto Baradel; from the CTA of workers: Hugo Yasky will participate. 


Gerardo Martínez at the OIT.
During the whole year, representatives of trade unions of the G20 countries and of the Global Trade Unions Federations will discuss a series of issues and then lead its recommendation to the State leaders who will decide if they include it in the Final Declaration of the summit next November. The goal of the G20 is to achieve a joint document with the businesspeople gathered in the B20. "That is our challenge, and it is not a minor issue. We hope to achieve concordance. In recent times, we have had unity of criteria and I wish to achieve it this time, so that it does not happen the same as in the OMC where there was no document", said Martínez.

The government of Mauricio Macri included in the issues of the forum "the future of work" as his biggest concerns. To the L20 Chairman, "the developing countries need competitive rules of the game. There must be a fair transition, we have to restructure the educational programmes, we have to find the way so that the development does not generate any more layoffs. There must be a fair transition, a reconversion".

"We have to expose the need to improve decisions that recreates the investments in productive economy, in real economy. Everything does not have to go through by monetary practice patterns, there have to be countercyclical measures which allow the development of work and the productive growth of the world", stated Martínez.

Source INFOBAE

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