Held prior to the G20 high-level meetings and social partner consultations, the Labour 20 Summit provides the opportunity for representatives to jointly prepare policy recommendations and key messages to G20 Leaders and Ministers. Those priorities are subsequently issued in a L20 Statement to governments.
Confronted with the urgency of the 2008 financial crisis, General Secretaries and Presidents of G20 trade unions have been meeting from the very first G20 Leaders’ Summit in Washington onwards. The first formally recognized L20 Summit took place in Cannes just before the Leaders’ meeting and was followed by Summits in Los Cabos (2012) and Moscow (2013).
The L20 Summit creates a forum for discussion for the global labour movement on its future engagement with the G20 and invites a wide range of stakeholders from governments, international organisations, civil society and business as guest speakers to enable exchanges on the future directions of global policies and governance. One of the outcomes has been a joint B20/ L20 commitment to scale up quality apprenticeships in 2013 as well as discussions on next steps for the B20/L20 collaboration.
The next L20 Summit will take place in Brisbane in November 2014 under the Australian G20 Presidency. The ITUC and TUAC work in tandem with the central trade union confederation in the respective host country to prepare the Summits. In 2014, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is the Australian host organisation and partner of the L2O.