IMF, trade unions continue frank dialogue Labor and IMF exchange views on reforms

Pages353-359

Page 353

On October 21-23, about 90 trade union representatives from 40 industrial, developing, and transition countries met with IMF and World Bank management and staff for a wide-ranging discussion of economic and labor-related issues. The meeting, continuing the exchange of views between the Bretton Woods institutions and the global labor movement that began a decade ago, renews a commitment to maintain a frank, open, and constructive dialogue.

The third day of the meetings took place in the IMF and was chaired by Willy Kiekens, an IMF Executive Director whose constituency includes several Eastern and Western European countries as well as Turkey, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In an earlier meeting between the IMF Executive Board and labor unions, Kiekens paid tribute to this 10-year dialogue. It was begun, he explained, by former IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus. In that first meeting, Camdessus promised that the IMF would pay more attention to poverty reduction, income distribution, and social safety nets.

Page 359

Camdessus also linked democracy to truly representative trade unions; each has an important role to play in ensuring accountable and responsive governments. Kiekens noted that, in his own service on the Executive Board, he had witnessed several instances where trade union officials were the first to alert the IMF to serious governance problems and to ask for help in fighting corruption.

Over the past 10 years, Kiekens said, the IMF has become dramatically more open. It now actively seeks out the views of civil society, including trade unions.

He highlighted the benefits that have been drawn from poverty reduction strategy papers. Three years of experience with this broadly inclusive and participatory process, he said, have produced a real breakthrough in IMF and World Bank relations and in the relations between these institutions and trade unions and nongovernmental organizations.

In the October 23 meeting, IMF Managing Director Horst Köhler and staff from the IMF's Policy Development and Review (PDR) Department, including its director, Timothy Geithner, met with the labor leaders to exchange views on the state of the global economy and on progress with IMF reforms, including efforts to strengthen crisis prevention and resolution. The labor leaders welcomed Köhler's vision of the IMF as an institution open to learning from its dialogue with civil society and committed to reforms. Like Köhler, they looked forward to a...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT