In this resolution, the 3rd ITUC-AP General Council Meeting notes that global unemployment is likely to increase by 61 million worldwide by the end of 2009, over 200 million workers could be pushed into extreme poverty resulting in the number of working poor rising to 1.4 billion globally, and women, youth, and migrants are among the workers hardest hit by the global crisis. It is concerned that massive retrenchment in the midst of a financial and economic crisis is still taking place without adequate rules for employment adjustment, proper compensation, and social safety nets.
The General Council supports fiscal stimulus measures by the G20 and other governments which should continue until there is a real recovery. It asserts that the current crisis should be an opportunity to turn the decades of failures in economic and labour market policies into a balanced economy with an improved global governance, a balanced wage-led growth rather than financialisation and excessive profit, the rights of labour and capital. It urges the governments to continue immediate steps to ensure that recovery measures are adequate for maintaining and protecting jobs and provide social protection, to combat the risk of wage deflation and reverse the growth of income inequality, etc.