VANCOUVER - International labour organizers say they have a message for world leaders ahead of the G8 and G20 summits: things must change.

Leaders of the International Trade Union Confederation, which is holding its world congress in Vancouver ahead of the summits in Ontario later this week, say they will tell international leaders that there won't be economic recovery without jobs.

In fact a large part of the confederation's second World Congress, entitled "Now The People," will look at the global economic crisis and how the congress believes leaders should proceed.

The group's general secretary, Guy Ryder, and Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to relay the message.

Ryder said global economic recovery is extremely fragile and unemployment levels are still far too high.

"I take away from the meeting his repeated phrase -- and I welcome it -- that between fiscal consolidation and job creation, he said 'it's a balancing act,"' he said on the first day of the congress.

The confederation, which represents 176 million union workers around the globe, will also meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia's Kevin Rudd and other world leaders during the upcoming summits in Ontario.

Georgetti told reporters at a news conference Monday at the opening of the gathering that global leaders need to take more than just finance into account.

"They've ignored them for too long and the results, as we've seen in the last 20-25 months, have been stark and startling," Georgetti said.

Delegates at the conference will debate a resolution demanding deep reform to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization.

"Working people are angered by the cause of the crisis and feel a deep sense of injustice at the massive suffering it has brought," says the resolution.

Ryder said they worry as the problem appears to ease for certain financial institutions and on world markets.

"The initial impetus and imperative for regulation is going to recede and we believe the G20 leaders must not let that happen."

Sharan Burrow, ITUC president, said working people around the world are angry about this financial crisis developed by the corporate sector.

"They know that they've, in fact, been the victims of this greed," she said. "People lost their jobs, they lost working hours, the lost pension entitlements, in many cases they lost their homes."

The confederation believes some kind of financial transaction tax is essential, but Harper has aggressively opposed such a tax.

Georgetti said he told Harper that the way the federal government characterizes the fee as a bank tax gave him a way out, to argue that Canada's banks weren't part of the problem.

"I likened it to the BP oil spill in the gulf. This would be like letting BP start drilling the day after they had that spill," he said. "We're always taught, and should expect, that if you make a mess you have to clean it up."

And if the message doesn't get through to world leaders through dialogue, Georgetti said union workers will be a "loud peaceful voice" on Toronto's streets on Saturday.