Unions discuss free trade, jobs

Unions say free trade agreements should take second place to G20 countries getting their domestic economic policies in order.

The Labour 20 (L20) summit being held ahead of this weekend's G20 leaders' summit in Brisbane has been discussing strategies to boost jobs and global growth.

G20 members including Australia have been active in the past year in securing bilateral trade agreements.

But John Evans, general secretary of the OECD's trade union advisory committee, said the real issue lay in boosting demand in the global economy.

"The issue is not about getting trade growing through trade agreements," Mr Evans told the forum on Thursday.

"The issue is to create jobs by getting demand and then getting trade as part of that process.

"I think we should be putting it the other way round as a priority."

He said the L20's research had shown that by increasing wages and bolstering public investment in infrastructure by one per cent of GDP could exceed the G20's target of a two per cent rise in growth by 2018.

Australia's Employment Minister Eric Abetz, who addressed the L20, said FTAs were crucial to help countries leverage jobs from their economic strengths, but domestic policy was also important.

"I don't see it as being a dichotomy," he said.

ACTU secretary Ged Kearney said a Productivity Commission report showed that FTAs had at best a neutral impact or at worst a negative impact on the Australian economy.

She had concerns with the Korean and Chinese FTAs which would give "unfettered access" for Korean and Chinese nationals to work in Australia.

International Trade Union Confederation general secretary Sharan Burrow said trade agreements were not the only answer to growth, but were important.

However, agreements should ensure workers were not impoverished, exploited or put in danger.

Ms Burrow also had concerns with the growing use of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) - an instrument of public international law that grants a corporation the right to sue foreign governments.

"Fix that up and then come back to talk to us about how to increase global trade," she said.