Global unions call for defence of democracy and workers’ rights at G20

The statement comes as the Trump administration's US G20 presidency has stripped back the G20 agenda to three priorities, deregulation, fossil fuel expansion and AI, refusing to convene working groups on employment, development, health or inequality.

South Africa, which drove significant progress for workers during its 2025 G20 presidency, has not been invited to this year's summit and has been replaced by Poland. The L20 itself has not been recognized by the US presidency.

ITUC general secretary Luc Triangle warned that any attempt to weaken democratic institutions or workers' protections in favour of billionaires and big corporations will only deepen inequality and instability.

TUAC general secretary Veronica Nilsson added that working people need their governments to tackle inequality, climate change and technological disruption, not fuel them with deregulation, fossil fuel expansion and unchecked corporate power.

Workers' demands for the G20

The L20 statement sets out a comprehensive vision for what the G20 should deliver for working people, including fair and living wages, universal social protection, rights-based regulation, a just transition away from fossil fuels, and fair taxation upheld by a UN tax convention.

The statement also explicitly endorses the establishment of an International Panel on Inequality, a key recommendation of the G20 Extraordinary Committee report on global inequality commissioned under the South African presidency and led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The union movement is clear that the current US G20 agenda moves in the opposite direction. The L20 statement describes the deregulation agenda as a cover for shifting the role of government from advancing the interests of all people to reinforcing inequality for the benefit of a small elite.

"The decision to exclude the Labour 20 from the G20 is not an oversight. It is a statement about whose interests this presidency serves. Workers are not a side issue in the global economy, they are the global economy. We will not wait for an invitation that is not coming. We will build the counter-agenda that working people need and make sure it shapes every G20 presidency that follows this one,"

said Kemal Ozkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.

What is at stake

The G20 Leaders' Summit is scheduled for 14-15 December 2026 in Miami. With no working groups on labour, employment or inequality convened under the US presidency, unions are building their own counter-agenda, through public campaigns, coalition-building and engagement with future G20 presidencies, including the United Kingdom's in 2027.