Jan. 31—Employees around the world need more high-paying, safe and secure jobs. But they also need deep reform of global trade policies, global trade union leaders told the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the ski resort of Davos, Switzerland.
Some 185 million people are unemployed worldwide and another 550 million work for less than the equivalent of $1 a day, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), a branch of the United Nations. Meanwhile, the ILO found that after-tax corporate profits are at their highest levels in decades, particularly in the United States and Europe.
In a statement presented at the Jan. 25–29 meeting attended by the world’s top business and political leaders, union leaders stressed the importance of creating well-paying jobs in order to ensure equitable and sustainable economic growth for developing countries.
Held annually, this year’s summit gathered business, political and labor leaders under a Creative Imperative theme in which WEF participants detailed plans for new and planned projects in disaster relief, hunger, anti-corruption, financing for development and public-private partnerships.
Creating a ‘New Social Contract’
“We had a social contract, and it created a middle class that powered a strong U.S. economy and stable shared growth,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said during one of the WEF panels. “The doubling of the global workforce has changed the ground rules, but we have not made the policy changes that are necessary to create a new social contract. Continuing to cheapen the workforce, using bankruptcy as a tool to shed costs and asking workers to make all the sacrifices while executives get big rewards—this is no social contract at all.”
Sweeney pointed to the recent bankruptcy at Delphi, the giant auto parts maker, as an example of large corporations abandoning the social contract with workers and communities. Delphi, which declared bankruptcy Oct. 8, wants to cut thousands of jobs and lower wages—making it even harder for workers to pay the higher health care premiums the company also wants to impose—while some 600 executives would receive up to $510 million in incentive pay. Delphi also is preparing to ask the federal bankruptcy court for permission to turn over its pension plan to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures private pensions.
Corporations Profiting More, Paying Less of Their Fair Share in Taxes
Despite reaping massive profits, corporations around the world are paying lower and lower taxes around the world, union leaders said. “More and more of the tax burden is falling on individuals, while major companies are failing to pay their fair share,” said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Over the past 20 years, the share of taxes paid by companies in the most developed countries has fallen by about one-third, and the situation in developing countries is far worse, Ryder said. In the United States, corporations now pay only 13 percent of the federal income tax bill, while individuals pay 87 percent.
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