Cagliari, 13 September – A final statement which photographs more clearly than in the past the challenges that the G7 countries must face, to promote quality employment and welfare in their own countries and in partner countries, in a critical phase for the labor market and social protections globally. However, concrete steps are needed now in the direction of that just ecological and social transition which, as civil society, we believe cannot be postponed.

The conclusion of the G7 Labour and Employment under the Italian presidency gives us he conviction that the full involvement of civil society, like the other constituencies, in the dialogue with the delegations and governments that the Labor Ministers have chosen – unique among all the G7 Working Groups – allows for a deeper and shared analysis, the formulation of concrete proposals and alternatives to protect people’s rights and a more generative dimension of shared public policies.

We recall, as an example, the actions of organized citizens for the full participation of elderly people in public life, alternatives but no less productive for social cohesion than involuntary retention from work. As well as concrete practices of territorial activation for the just transition: the civil, social and solidarity economy, fair trade, the circular, transformative economy, centered on care, widespread well-being and the balanced valorization of human work and technologies.

Precisely on the latter, we appreciate what is proposed in the G7 Action Plan for a human-centric development of Artificial Intelligence. Promoting participatory governance of digital technologies and platforms, AI and the data they generate, as well as mechanisms that include workers and trade unions to evaluate technologies before their development and deployment is crucial. Ensuring transparency of algorithms and accountability is in fact fundamental to addressing and avoiding inequalities and discrimination. However, a strengthening of the rules and legislation is also needed, and from now on concrete actions by the countries are required so that Cagliari’s action plan does not remain an appreciable declaration of intent but become a concrete reality.

Regarding this issue, as any other, the G7 has the duty to anchor all its actions to the framework of human rights, to guarantee full respect for them internally and, outside its borders, to contribute to strengthening multilateral frameworks responsible for protecting work and employment.

For this reason, we renew the more general exhortation to the G7 to play a concrete and ambitious role in building consensus and strengthening the multilateral spaces of the United Nations, to promote a global just transition capable of combating inequalities, guaranteeing climate justice, equal treatment for women and men, decent work for all.

The G7 can be part of the problem, if it unilaterally promotes the interests of the richest economies, or part of the solution, if it defends human rights and the common interests of humanity and the planet for a more peaceful, just, sustainable and secure world.