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Peter Bakvis

Peter Bakvis

Peter Bakvis is the ITUC’s representative in Washington.

Web: http://www.ituc-csi.org
  • International

    Global institutions lurching towards Sherwood

    19th October 2012 — Filed under: International

    Peter Bakvis Peter Bakvis

    Peter Bakvis, who runs the global unions office in Washington DC, was at the annual meetings of the International Financial Institutions (IMF and World Bank) in Tokyo last weekend, and reports here on developments in the global campaign for a Robin Hood Tax. As EU governments (11 so far) commit to introducing a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), global economic institutions like the IMF and the OECD are following their lead. Will the governments still refusing to implement an FTT follow their advice?

    Some 200 participants met in Tokyo on 11 October, one day prior to the IFIs’ annual meetings (12-14 October), for an “International Symposium on Innovative Financing Mechanisms and Financial Transactions Tax”.  The meeting was co-sponsored by the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development and a Japanese CSO coalition, and was attended by ministers attending the IFI meetings, parliamentarians and representatives of several civil society organisations that advocate for the FTT, including trade unions. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) was among the organizations with a speaking role. Public Services International, whose Japanese affiliates were among the organizers of the symposium, provided a report. 

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  • International

    Searching for a positive IMF intervention on workers’ rights…

    10th October 2012 — Filed under: International

    Peter Bakvis Peter Bakvis

    Peter Bakvis is the Washington DC officer of Global Unions. Here he reports on the IMF’s approach – in theory good, but in practice poor – to union rights and labour standards.

    Last month the IMF posted a six-page “Factsheet: The IMF’s Advice on Labor Market Issues”, which tries to present a rationale for the Fund’s extensive involvement in labour market reforms in many countries. The factsheet explains that in response to the sharp rise in unemployment at the beginning of the 2008-2009 crisis, “the IMF supported policies to boost demand — and thus employment — through fiscal stimulus and easing of policy interest rates”.

    However “in the longer run”, the Fund has decided it must take on “a broader set of policies and institutions [that] influences the functioning of labor markets…. Often, changes in these policies and institutions are needed to boost growth and job creation…. It may, for instance, be necessary to lower labor costs [so as] to restore competitiveness”.

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  • International

    IMF pats itself on back for irrelevant conditionality report

    24th September 2012 — Filed under: International

    Peter Bakvis Peter Bakvis

    The IMF used to be a cornerstone of the neoliberal Washington consensus that played havoc with developing countries’ economies in the name of ‘structural adjustment’ in the 1980s and 90s. Since then, campaigners including trade unions have pushed back, and demanded that the IMF justify its policies. Here, the head of the Global Unions’ Washington DC office, Peter Bakvis, assesses the latest attempt by the IMF to defend itself. Unnecessary spoiler alert: he’s not convinced! 

    Last week the IMF yesterday released a 2011 Review of Conditionality: Overview Paper  which announced a new and improved 2012 model IMF. Loan conditions are more focused, “parsimonious” and “well-tailored”; fund lending programmes are now “even-handed”, “unbiased” and flexible; and “while it was difficult to quantify …, the macroeconomic and social effects of programs appear to have been generally positive”.

    There’s only one problem with this rosy assessment of IMF loan conditionality: it applies to less than 10% of the Fund’s current outstanding credit. The review’s overall conclusions are not relevant, admits the report, for crisis loans paid out since 2008 in Europe, which have become the Fund’s core business and more than 90% of total current lending volume. 

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  • Economics

    IMF oversells labour market reform, again

    28th June 2012 — Filed under: Economics

    Peter Bakvis Peter Bakvis

    Claiming that large-scale reforms of labour markets and pensions in euro-zone countries will deliver a surge in economic growth, IMF officials have urged that deregulatory reforms “should be implemented without delay”.  When combined with product market reforms, the Fund asserts that labour reforms will boost the zone’s GDP by 4½% over five years.

    However a careful reading of “Fostering Growth in Europe Now”, the IMF staff research paper used to justify these claims, shows that the positive impact would happen only if several major and parallel economic policy shifts take place throughout the euro-zone, and even so would entail high social costs.

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