The perilous state of Workers Rights Around the World.

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EXCLUSIVE: Worker rights deteriorating post-GFC, says Burrow

For global union leader Sharan Burrow, a short visit to her home country of Australia is a peaceful oasis away from a world where the situation for working people is going backwards fast.

A rising tide of youth unemployment and lack of social protections across much of the world pose the biggest challenges to working people, Burrow has told R@W News in an exclusive interview.

The Brussels-based General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation says that while the role of unions in the Arab Spring has been inspiring, elsewhere “the world’s in a really bleak space”.

And the former ACTU President has urged workers in Australia to join international campaigns for rights at work in the expanding global economy.

Burrow, who took office as General Secretary of the ITUC a year ago after a decade as ACTU President, said people in Australia probably did not appreciate the ongoing impact of the Global Financial Crisis on workers in other parts of the world.

“The world’s in a really bleak space of unemployment at record highs, and youth unemployment in particular now is a social risk for every nation in the world, not just developing countries where youth unemployment can be as high as 70% in places like Yemen, but go to the heart of Europe, Spain it’s now more than 50%, France and Germany 20%-plus,” Burrow tells R@W News.MORE