The representatives of the Americas attending the G-20 Meeting of Labor and Employment to take place April 20-21, 2010, in Washington, D.C., will present two documents agreed in the framework of the Organization of American States (OAS), which reflect the consensuses, concerns and priorities of the hemisphere in the area of employment.

The Declaration of Buenos Aires is available here: here

The Plan of Action of Buenos Aires is available here here

The Declaration and the Plan of Action of Buenos Aires are the result the XVI Inter-American Conference of Labor Ministers (IACML) of the OAS, held on October 2009 in the capital of Argentina. The documents intend to be a contribution for the dialogue among the Ministers of the G-20 during the Washington meeting and will be presented by the Minister of Labor of Argentina and current President of the IACML, Carlos Alfonso Tomada. The Ministers of Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Canada will also attend the meeting.

Both documents reflect the priorities of the hemisphere in the area of labor, as well as the most important consensuses adopted by the Labor Ministers of the region.

“This ministerial meeting is an unequivocal sign of our leaders’ commitment to place labor at the center of the global economic recovery. In that sense, I have the privilege of sharing with the Ministers of the G-20 the consensus we reached during the IACML Conference in Buenos Aires in 2009, which includes ideas on how to address the crisis, and particularly the need to guarantee the coordination of economic and labor-related policies, reaffirm the proactive role of the State, and strengthen the social protection systems. I am confident that our consensus at the inter-American level will resonate in the G-20 recommendations,” said Minister Tomada.

“The fact that the G-20 Labor Ministers are considering the Declaration and Action Plan of Buenos Aires, approved in the XVI ACML of the OAS, as part of their negotiations, shows the relevance and strength of the consensus achieved in Buenos Aires. It is also the result of the great commitment of the Ministers of the region with the formulation of proposals to confront the global economic crisis,” commented Francisco Pilotti, Director of the Department of Social Development and Employment of the OAS, which serves as the Technical Secretariat of the IACML.

Coordinated by the OAS Department of Social Development and Employment, the IACML is the specialized conference of the OAS that brings together the Labor Ministers of the Americas since 1963. The Conference is considered the principal forum for discussion and political decision making on labor-related issues at the hemispheric level.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-124/10