Migrant workers, faith-based communities and international activists held a public forum in New York last June 22, 2009, examining the current global economic crisis and proposals to deal with the crisis from the perspective of working people, particularly migrant workers. This was held just before the start of the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development which ran from June 24 to 26, 2009 at the UN General Headquarters.

The forum entitled, “Workers on the Move”, was sponsored by Ibon Foundation, the World Council of Churches, the International Migrants Alliance and RESIST! (International People’s Campaign to Confront Crisis and War) in light of the global financial and economic crisis which continues to deepen and cause untold suffering among working people in the world.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that as many as 52 million more workers would join the ranks of the unemployed this year alone plus millions more in the next few years as the global economy continues to stagnate. Migrant workers, especially women workers and those in irregular status, are among the most vulnerable sectors in the population amidst the downturn as they are among the first to be laid-off or forced to accept lower wages and poorer working conditions in order to retain or get new jobs and continue to send remittances to their loved ones. They are also used as scapegoats of the jobs crisis, hence face increasing discrimination, xenophobia and racism.

The panel of speakers at the Forum included Paul Quintos, Policy Officer of Ibon Foundation; Teresa Gutierrez, Deputy Secretary General of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA); and Athena Peralta, consultant for the Poverty, Wealth and Ecology Project of the World Council of Churches.

Mr. Quintos discussed the roots of the global financial crisis, tracing its history to long-running imbalances in the real economy, gross inequities in the distribution of social wealth, and monopoly capitalist control over the global production and trading system. Ms. Guitierrez discussed the implications of the crisis on working people, sharing insights from her participation in migrant workers organizing and mobilizations in the U.S. Ms. Peralta presented an ethical and moral critique of the global economic system which operates on the basis of concentrating wealth in the hands of the few while impoverishing those who are the real creators of wealth – the working people who comprise the majority.

All speakers and reactors from the audience emphasized the need to globalize workers’ response and solidarity to confront the current crisis and build the foundations of a just, equitable and sustainable economic order in place of the old.