International Trade Union Confederation
Building Workers’ Power
The clock is ticking
for a new social contract
Investing in decent climate-friendly jobs with gender-responsive just transition
We need to return to full employment, which means the creation of 575 million new climate-friendly jobs by 2030 to ensure recovery and resilience.
This will only be possible through sustainable investments in all industrial sectors and vital care services, with just transition measures to ensure that we stabilise the planet.
The urgency of industrial transition means we have to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030. Just transition measures must be gender-responsive.
Ensuring decent climate-friendly jobs with gender responsive just transition is the way towards a sustainable recovery!
Investing in the care economy will create millions of new jobs and boost women’s economic participation
Health, education, childcare, aged care and other care services are vital for equitable and inclusive societies.
Doubling investments in the care sector can create 269 million new jobs by 2030, helping women regain their place in the labour force and promoting shared responsibility within families.
Care jobs must be decent, with safe working conditions, adequate salaries – including minimum living wages and equal pay for work of equal value – and covered by social protection.
Investments in the care economy are vital for a gender-transformative recovery and inclusive societies!
Workers’ lifelong learning will put people at the centre of green and digital transitions
Today’s digital and climate transitions require workers to constantly reskill and upskill. Workers must be entitled to access to effective lifelong learning systems that provide transitions to decent climate-friendly jobs.
Women must have equal access to education and vocational training, while young people must get support to move from education to decent jobs.
No one can be left behind, including persons with disabilities, migrants, indigenous people and other workers in vulnerable situations.
Workers’ lifelong learning is central for a recovery that leaves no one behind.
End corporate greed and ensure secure workplaces where rights are respected
The quest of business for profit at all costs triggers exploitative labour practices that include labour rights violations and unsafe working conditions.
It’s time to end corporate greed and implement a labour protection floor for all workers (ILO Centenary Declaration).
Labour rights need to be part and parcel of recovery strategies. Governments and employers must adopt and implement occupational health and safety standards and recognise them as fundamental rights.
Corporations must be held to account by mandated due diligence, and there must be grievance procedures to effect remedy for violations.
A rights-based recovery requires a labour protection floor for all, along with the recognition of occupational health and safety as a fundamental right. It also requires mandated due diligence for corporate accountability!
Universal social protection is an essential building block of resilient societies
Today more than half of the world’s population is totally uncovered by social protection measures. This is especially true for women, who are the majority in the informal economy.
It is essential to reach the formalization of at least one billion informal workers by 2030, and putting in place universal and gender- responsive social protection systems is a top priority to create resilient societies.
This is a political choice for many but not for all countries: poorest countries need support on the way through international solidarity with a Global Social Protection Fund in place.
Universal social protection and a Global Social Protection Fund are the only way forward to build a resilient world!
Minimum living wages and equal pay for work of equal value everywhere are a stepping stone to gender equality and social progress
Millions of workers across the world are not earning enough to live in dignity. Statutory minimum living wages, with collective bargaining, are essential to fight poverty and inequalities.
At the same time, women earn on average 20 per cent less than men worldwide. Ending the gender pay gap requires effective laws on equal pay, pay transparency and anti-discrimination, measures on gender segregation in the labour market and policies that uphold work life balance and care services.
This is essential for women’s full and equal participation in work and life.
Wages and equal pay for work of equal value are at the basis of social progress.
A global pay rise and tackling gender pay gap are essential for gender and societal equality.
Ending discrimination, gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work is key for equal societies
In the wake of Covid-19, discrimination, harassment, and violence have increased across the world.
Women pay the highest price, as they are losing their jobs and are particularly exposed to violence and harassment at work.
Everyone has the right to work in a workplace free from discrimination and violence, no matter their gender, class, race, ethnicity, ideology, religion, sexual orientation and disability status.
Therefore, governments’ recovery plans must foster equality and include ratifying and implementing key legal instruments, such as ILO Convention 111 on discrimination and 190 on violence and harassment.
A world free of discrimination, harassment and violence is the only way to ensure a recovery, along with resilience, that bears equality in its heart!
Working together through social dialogue to reinforce global governance and build a sustainable world
The world stands at an historic crossroads. Poverty levels are on the rise amid soaring inequality and climate instability.
We need a new model of global governance to redress the current imbalance of power and uneven distribution of wealth at international level.
Inclusive, gender-transformative approaches to development are essential to ensure that no one is left behind.
Only a renewed multilateralism based on social dialogue can deliver a New Social Contract centred on SDG 8.
Social dialogue will design a recovery that works for people and the environment and leaves no one behind!
#Timefor8
The clock is ticking for a New Social Contract
More than two years on since the outbreak of Covid-19, our world is more unstable and unsafe. We face an increasing number of conflicts, growing global inequality, and a worsening climate crisis.
Covid-19 has also triggered an extraordinary wave of destruction across the world of labour. We lost the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs in 2020, and some 130 million jobs were lost or at risk in 2021. The global jobs deficit, the number of jobs that must be created to reach full employment, is some 575 million. In addition, around 2 billion people are trapped in informal work.
We call for a New Social Contract with SDG 8 in its centre, rooted in a gender-transformative agenda based on (1) jobs – the creation of decent, climate-friendly jobs with just transition; (2) rights for all workers; (3) minimum living wages and equal pay; (4) universal social protection for all; (5) equality, and an end to all discrimination; and (6) inclusion, ensuring development systems that empower developing countries.
#Timefor8. The clock is ticking for a New Social Contract.
