Jobs, Rights and the Global Financial Crisis
Australia’s economy is recovering from the Global Financial Crisis, but the economic downturn again highlighted that unions have a fundamental role to play in protecting the jobs and rights of workers and in coming with solutions and a vision for a better economic system.
The Global Financial Crisis that spread from the US to the rest of the world posed the biggest threat to the jobs and living standards of Australian working families in several generations.
Australia weathered the storm better than many other countries because the Labor Government acted quickly and decisively to stimulate the economy, and because we have a strong safety net of rights, standards and protections for all workers, and because unions stood up to protect their jobs, their conditions and their living standards.
Nevertheless, for tens of thousands of working Australians and their families, the downturn has had a severe impact.
The victims of the downturn have be ordinary Australian workers, who through no fault of their own found themselves fighting to preserve their jobs, their incomes, their homes and their livelihoods.
In February 2010, there were 615,900 unemployed people, which was still 173,000 more than two years earlier. The jobless rate was 5.3%. An additional 872,600 people were underemployed and seeking more hours at work to maintain their living standards.
Protecting jobs & rights
Unions were at the forefront of the push to protect jobs from the earliest signs that Australia would not be immune from the Global Financial Crisis.
Unions argued for stimulus measures, proposed innovative ways of preserving jobs while retraining and reskilling the workforce, and called for a set of national interest expenditure guidelines to give Australian industry a fair go in bidding for the billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to be spent on stimulus projects.
Unions have also been the leading voice in articulating the anger of workers at the flawed thinking and corporate greed that was at the root of this crisis. There cannot be a return to the business as usual of crony capitalism and the short-term greed, bonus-fuelled risk-taking and “let the markets rip” attitude that caused so much hardship.
Unions believe the true benchmarks of economic recovery are not so-called ‘green shoots’ on the stock market, but sustainable jobs growth in the real economy.
Along with its role of advocating on behalf of working Australians, the ACTU has fostered debate and new thinking with a Jobs Summit, Pathways to Recovery, and an action plan for the crisis and the recovery, Jobs and Rights Charter for Working Australians.
Key facts
- 50 million workers around the world were estimated to lose their jobs in 2009, while another 200 million joined the 1.4 billion already subsisting on less than $US2 a day.
- Unemployment in Australia rose from 4% at the start of 2008 to peak at 5.8% in October 2009, and was forecast by Treasury to peak at 6.75% in the middle of 2010. At the peak, there were about 662,000 unemployed Australians, which was almost 170,000 more than a year earlier.
More information
International Labour Organization Summit on the Global Jobs Crisis
Manufacturing Alliance
Make It Here
Australian Government economic stimulus plan