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G8 and African Trade Union Leaders'

meeting with Prime minister Jean Chretien

Host of the Kananaskis G8 Summit

Ottawa, 18 June 2002

Leaders of the G8 trade union national centres, ICFTU, WCL, TUAC and African trade union leaders met with the Canadian Prime Minister Mr. Jean Chrétien host of the Kananaskis Summit at a meeting in Ottawa held on June 18, 2002. Mr. Chrétien was accompanied by Mr. Bob Fowler (the Canadian "Sherpa") and other officials.

 Ken Georgetti (CLC) opened the meeting and introduced the trade union delegation. He pointed out that it included African as well as G8 leaders in view of the discussion of the New partnership for African Development (NEPAD) at the Kananaskis Summit. The Prime Minister said that he was glad to have this opportunity to hear the trade union views.

 John Sweeney (TUAC President and AFL-CIO) thanked the Prime Minister for his personal commitment to pursuing poverty and development issues in international fora and presented the main recommendations in the trade union statement to the G8 Summit. He pointed to the negative face of the global economy, the fragility of the economic situation, the failure to make progress toward the UN Millennium Goals of poverty reduction and the rising public concern at the lack of a political and social regulatory framework for globalisation. Further action needed to be taken by governments to stimulate growth and employment, investment in skills and develop rules to govern globalisation including rules to guarantee respect for human rights and core labour rights. He said that it was essential that the NEPAD became real partnership between African governments and their people and that at the Johannesburg Earth Summit a social pillar was included in the sustainable development agenda. He suggested that the trade union interventions first comment an African development before moving to other issues on the G8 agenda.

 The Prime Minister said he would work with the G8 governments to achieve a positive outcome at Kananaskis and also wanted to engage with the civil society. He said he hoped that American unions in particular would oppose harmful US agricultural subsidies. The money could be used more effectively for development assistance. He looked forward to having a full and frank exchange of views.

 Sidi Said (UGTA - Algeria) said that if the NEPAD were to succeed it was essential that African people drive the process. Unions must be consulted which had not happened up to now. For example unions should be involved in the peer review process envisaged under NEPAD. Willy Madisha (COSATU, South Africa) repeated that African people and trade unions had been missing from any discussion of NEPAD in Africa. But also missing was a discussion of fiscal, monetary and employment policy and industrial strategy issues. NEPAD also had to be firmly based on respect for labour rights. The Prime Minister said that he would say to the African leaders at Kananaskis that they had to involve their populations locally and that if there were not popular support for NEPAD it would not succeed. He said the detailed economic elements of NEPAD would have to develop on a regional basis in Africa - South, Center, East, West and North. There had to be a respect of union rights in the process and the development of regional infrastructure such as the energy sector and reforestration. He gave the example of the need to invest in water supply and gas pipelines in West Africa.

 Mohamed Kobbaj (UGTM - Morocco) said that NEPAD was over reliant on attracting foreign investment at any cost. The issue should be the quality of foreign investment and he proposed that observance of the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises be used as a benchmark for investors’ behaviour within the NEPAD. The Prime Minister said that there was a need to have effective regulation of corporations in the global context and the OECD rules were important.

 Adams Oshiomhole (NLC - Nigeria) said that there should be greater debt reduction and write off under NEPAD, and African countries should have greater access to G8 markets on the basis of respect for core labour rights. He also said that peer reviews should take place for both recipients and aid donors to see whether obligations were being met. Mody Guiro (CNTS - Senegal) repeated that more extensive debt relief was essential. The Prime Minister said that the G7 Ministers of Finance had just met and discussed the progress on the HIPC debt relief and a report would be before the G8. He recognised that the past debt crisis had overwhelmed development and a discussion of debt would be at the forefront of their concerns. Canada itself had had to make difficult choices to reduce its public debt – for which it had been criticised by the trade unions, but now it was in strong position. Canada had cancelled all bilateral debt that it was owed from developing countries and hoped that more creditor countries would follow suit, but he felt that the HIPC initiative was leading to the problem being successfully managed with over twenty African countries receiving relief amounting to 40% of debt repayments. He also said that the UN Conference on Financing for Development in Monterey had led to commitments of significant increases in development assistance.

 John Evans (TUAC) said there were significant areas of agreement between what was being said by the African trade union leaders and the Prime Minister. He hoped that the African Action Plan to be agreed at the G8 meeting would include a trade union consultative mechanism in a similar way to the Marshall Plan and would make specific reference to respect for labour rights. He then pointed to the trade union leaders who would comment on other issues on the G8 agenda.

 Mamounata Cissé (ICFTU) said that the policies for Africa had to be put in a wider context of global union proposals for reform of the IMF and World Bank. In addition to the need to reform the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and involve unions in their elaboration, a growth orientated policy had to be put in place. The IFI's policy had clearly failed in the case of Argentina and inequality was growing throughout many parts of the developing world. An effective social dimension to the globalisation process had to be developed if the UN millennium goals were to be met. Donor countries had to be serious about raising ODA to meet UN targets.

 Kiyoshi Sasamori (RENGO - Japan) pointed out the need to stimulate the global economy and, in the case of Japan, the need for a combination of growth expansion and necessary structural reform in which workers were given security in the change process. He also pointed out the impact of China on investment and trade in Asia and the problem created by the unsustainable low level of labour costs in China. The Prime Minister noted that Japan was in a situation where it was difficult to expand ODA because of the fiscal constraints. He pointed out that half Japan's ODA currently went to China and suggested that RENGO might press to have this shifted to Africa as it was clear that Chinese growth was progressing due to private capital flows.

 Mikail Shmakov (FNPR - Russia) also drew attention to the political issues on the agenda of the G8 and notably on the fight against terrorism. The fight against terrorism was necessary but it had to be backed up by a struggle against poverty which led to despair and temptation of some to support terrorists.

 The Prime Minister said that whilst the agenda at Kananaskis covered three issues - the economy, terrorism, and Africa he was committed to ensuring that sufficient time would be devoted to discussions on both Africa and issues of fighting poverty.

 Luigi Cal (CISL - Italy) said that the European G8 countries had to take the lead in ensuring that Europe became a motor for global recovery and growth as envisaged at the Lisbon Summit. In his own country labour deregulation was at first pushed by the government, without negotiation and consultation but following the mass reaction by workers negotiations were now taking place. Change should be negotiated and needed to based on consensus. Willy Thys (WCL) said that there needed to be more effective application of OECD rules to outlaw tax havens and greater efforts to stamp out government corruption through the respect for human and labour rights. The Prime Minister agreed that damaging tax competition had to be stopped as it would undermine the provision of necessary collective services. He supported the OECD work to outlaw tax havens but all OECD countries, had to sign up for it if it were to have moral force. He fully shared the unions call to fight corruption. This had to be at centre of the African partnership.

 René Valladon ( FO - France) and Henri Massé (FTQ - Québec, Canada) regretted that unions had not been able to be present to meet with all the leaders at Kananaskis. Trade unions were not opposed to globalisation but had to have their voice heard on the need for regulation. The retreat of leaders away from civil society to a mountain resort gave the wrong message to the public. Trade unions would seek to have more engagement in subsequent G8 leaders' meetings and ensure that there was more continuity in the discussions for example on Africa.

 The Prime Minister said that he had taken the decision to hold the Summit at a small venue because summits had got out of hard with many thousands of participants at recent G8 Summits. In Kananaskis the largest delegation would have forty participants. He wanted a frank dialogue between the 9 leaders present without the distraction of large delegations. However he was committed to reporting the union views to the leaders many of which he shared. On NEPAD he would say to the leaders that for NEPAD to succeed there had to be consultations with unions. He would make that engagement. He would also talk to President Chirac about ensuring that there was follow up on NEPAD in the 2003 summit meetings in France.

 Ken Georgetti concluded the meeting. He said that here was clear agreement on the need for democracy, but strong democracy needed strong unions, and he hoped the leaders would understand that. He was encouraged that the Prime Minister had listened and had said that he shared many of the union concerns. He hoped that this consensus would be reflected in the G8 communiqué and G8 African Action Plan.

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