MEDIA STATEMENT:
GQEBERHA – The Labour 20 (L20) meeting, held in Gqeberha, South Africa, has successfully concluded, marking a significant milestone in advancing the rights and interests of workers within the G20 framework.
The meeting commended the Department of Employment and Labour for its efforts in expanding the platform for labour engagement on critical issues. For the first time, a government has facilitated the L20’s participation alongside each of the Employment Working Group sessions, with three out of the four scheduled meetings taking place simultaneously and at the same venue in South Africa.
Convened under the theme “Living and Working in an Unequal World: Ensuring Decent Work and Decent Lives”, the meeting brought together global trade union leaders and international organisations including representatives from the South African government to chart a progressive path for labour rights, just transition, social protection, and economic justice.
The hybrid meeting attended by 80 delegates from across the world was hosted by South Africa’s four major trade union federations – COSATU, FEDUSA, NACTU, and SAFTU, and emphasised the importance of placing workers at the heart of global economic decision-making.
Among other key priorities and commitments, delegates in this L20 meeting called for:
1. A Renewed Call for Global Labour Protections
The L20 workshop reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening labour rights across all G20 economies, particularly in the Global South. Delegates condemned the continued erosion of workers’ rights, including restrictions on collective bargaining, wage suppression, and the rise of precarious employment models. Citing the 2024 ITUC Global Rights Index, the meeting highlighted alarming trends such as the denial of the right to strike in 87% of countries and the violent repression of labour movements in 44 nations. The labour delegates pledged to intensify struggles to hold governments accountable for upholding international labour standards.
2. Just Transition for Workers in the Green Economy
The L20 workshop delegates emphasised the urgent need for a just transition as economies shift towards greener energy sources. They urged that the just transition must be based on a public pathway that strengthens the role of the state and state ownership and opposed the marketisation of energy and privatisation of energy. Delegates urged that there should be more discussion on the Just Transition in the G20 with an emphasis on protecting and creating employment and decent work and advancing energy democracy, ensuring affordable and accessible energy. While welcoming the creation of 16.2 million green jobs globally, trade union leaders raised concerns over unequal job distribution, with developing countries struggling to access the benefits of climate-related employment opportunities and grant funding to promote industrialisation, mitigation and adaptation
Delegates called for:
• Protecting employment and creating new jobs and decent work with living wages and safe workplaces.
• Strong social protection mechanisms to support workers and communities impacted by economic shifts linked to climate policies.
• Comprehensive reskilling and training programs for workers transitioning out of carbon-intensive industries.
• Public investments in renewable energy infrastructure that prioritise local job creation.
• Social dialogue with labour playing a key role in and being included in all discussions around the Just Transition “We cannot allow the green transition to become a new form of economic colonialism,” said ITUC Africa President Martha Molema. “Workers in the Global South must not bear the brunt of environmental policies designed without their inclusion.”
3. Addressing the Challenges of Platform and Gig Work
Discussion in the L20 workshop placed a strong emphasis on the rapid rise of platform-based and gig work, which has created new employment opportunities but also led to widespread worker exploitation. The meeting noted that many gig workers lack formal protections, access to social security, and fair wages due to misclassification and weak labour regulations. The recognition of a dependent employment relationship is the best way to classify misclassified workers to give them access to labour rights.
4. Strengthening Social Protection and Economic Resilience
The meeting called for a comprehensive expansion of universal social protection systems. Speakers highlighted that 4 billion people worldwide lack access to social protection, a crisis that disproportionately affects informal workers, women, and youth. The L20 urged the G20 to commit to, among others, universal access to unemployment insurance and pension schemes and the digitalisation of social security mechanisms to improve access and efficiency. Delegates further called for stronger enforcement to ensure that employers pay their obligations and called for addressing fragmentation within government provision of social protection, to ensure workers can easily access social protection.
5. Fair and Equitable International Financial System
The L20 delegates attending the meeting also cemented labour’s demand for a reformed international financial architecture that prioritises debt justice, progressive taxation and stemming illicit financial transfers and customs fraud. With many developing nations struggling under the weight of unsustainable debt, the federations and trade unions called on the G20 to deliver real relief, including debt cancellation where necessary. “We cannot allow workers to continue bearing the costs of financial crises they did not create,” said Riefdah Ajam, FEDUSA General Secretary.
Furthermore, the workshop highlighted the urgent need to address these issues:
• Rampant Informalization: Millions are trapped in precarious work without rights, protections, or security – we must advance formalization.
• The Crushing Weight of Debt: International financial institutions impose endless debt and austerity, crippling public services and wages.
• The Climate Crisis on the Frontlines: The Global South suffers the worst climate disasters and is least able to adapt and mitigate, despite the Global North’s historical responsibility.
• The Suppression of Union Rights: Governments and corporations collude to crush unions, criminalize strikes, and undermine labour laws.
• Exploitation of Our Natural Resources and Labour: The Global North plunders our resources and labour – we demand local beneficiation, industrialization, restructuring the international financial architecture to support development of the Global South, and an end to commodification and privatisation of energy.
• Decent Jobs for All: Real, sustainable jobs with living wages, not exploitative gigs, and the formalization of informal work.
• Universal Social Protection: Demand universal coverage, robust benefits, and strengthened public services for all.
• Workers’ Rights are Human Rights: End union-busting, strike criminalization, and corporate abuses in supply chains.
• A Just Transition: Climate solutions must protect workers and communities, not burden the poor. We need to pursue a public pathway which advances state ownership, rejects privatisation, advances energy democracy and promotes affordable and accessible energy for all.
• Power in the Digital Age: Demand worker protections against digital surveillance, algorithmic control, and exploitation.
• Living Wages, Not Poverty Wages: Pay living wages, equal pay for equal work, and an end to the gender pay gap.
• Smash Patriarchy: End workplace discrimination and gender-based violence; economic policies must empower women.
• Unemployment and inequality: Create employment with decent work and living wages; end precarious work; enhance enforcement and prosecution of non-complying employers.
Delegates at the L20 concluded with a strong call for global solidarity among workers’ movements and other progressive formation, urging trade unions to remain vigilant in defending labour rights against growing threats of deregulation, privatisation, and digital exploitation. Delegates emphasised the need to specifically highlight and address the challenges faced by workers in Africa and the Global South, as well as women workers. This includes advancing state provided child-care, safe public transport for women and elimination discrimination and gender-based violence and harassment at work.
The meetings’ discussions will directly inform the L20 Summit and the G20 Employment Working Group in the coming months. Trade unions are committed to ensuring that worker-centric policies are integrated into global economic strategies and that policy puts people before profit.
“While governments talk and engage each other in the L20 and G20, let us not be fooled. This may look like a polite discussion forum – but it is a battleground! We are here to fight hard for workers,” said COSATU President Zingiswa Losi. “We are here to shape the narrative and forge a path towards a world where the working class is no longer crushed under the boots of inequality, neo-liberalism and a mentality that places profit before people”.
The L20 remains resolute in ensuring that the G20 presidency, under the South African government’s leadership, delivers on its promises of a just, inclusive, and worker-centred economy.