VII ESNA Trade Union Meeting of Our America

March 31st, April 1st & 2nd 2016 Montevideo, Uruguay

“Workers in struggle to build alternatives in the face of capitalism’s global crisis”

The growing global crisis of capitalism continues its offensive with grave consequences for workers the world over. The reality of lower wages, the flexibilization and precariousness of labor, outsourcing and all forms of super-exploitation, all contribute to the growing levels of unemployment, underemployment, and marginalization of workers within a framework of worsening living conditions for themselves and their families. Not only does this global crisis manifest itself in the workplace, it also expresses itself in the recurrent process of global migration, endured by millions throughout the planet for economic and political reasons, as well as the consequences of war. We are dealing with a continual process of displacement and dispossession that affect the peoples of this planet. The current period of class struggle is characterized by the increased subordination of labor, nature and society to the dictates of capital and its program of maximum liberalization in the form of deregulation. We are witness to the recent approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the advance of the Pacific Alliance, the Trade in Service Agreement (TiSA) and other free trade agreements that favour the profit driven subordination of workers to the dictates of capitals’ accumulation. The different transformative processes that have been achieved in our continent in the last years are at an historic crossroad. We can say that this process can take an intonation that either depends and consolidates its ties with the great majority of popular struggles that attempt to construct an alternative society that is just and based on the principle of solidarity; or take on a tone that is accommodating to national and transnational economic interests tied to North American imperialism, leading our continent in the direction of an historic setback. It is in this context that as workers we are in need of building a popular counteroffensive throughout the continent and throughout the world, to overcome the defensive posture that has subordinated us to capital’s dominant strategy. Since 2008 the Trade Union Meeting of Our America has been proposing the Unity of Action of the world’s working class movement, towards confronting the methods employed by capitalist exploitation We maintain from within the Trade Union Meeting of Our America, that we are determined to build the mechanisms for our resistance and build a popular/people’s power beyond political borders. That is why, beyond convening the 7th Trade Union Meeting of Our America in Montevideo, Uruguay from March 31, April 1 & 2 of 2016, we are inviting workers’ organizations and workers from throughout the world to discuss a common strategy. We propose to advance in organizing the worker’s movement to confront capital’s power and project. We aspire to end to the payment of capital’s crisis on the backs of workers, and create the conditions for workers to assume the project for social and political liberation and emancipation.

Fraternally,

MARCELO ABDALA (General Sec. PIT CNT)

JORGE BERMUDEZ (Int’l Sec. PIT CNT)

LEONARDO BATALLA (ESNA Coordinator)