Development Platform of the Americas

By the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas - June 2014

The sustainable development approach was the result of progressive awareness-raising on the contradictions between the predatory capitalist development model, the assurance of good quality of life for citizens, peoples’ right to development and the awareness of the physical limits of the planet to meet the demands of humanity. These contradictions were deepened by the implementation of the neoliberal logic where the forces of capitalism acted without any control, accumulating greater wealth, minimizing the instruments of social protection and citizen rights, increasing the destruction of natural resources and rapidly leading the planet to an unprecedented economic, social and environmental crisis.

At the end of the 90s, the cumulative resistance struggles of popular movements against neoliberalism across the Americas and confrontation with authoritarian regimes of Latin America in the previous decades helped forge multiple expressions committed to the pursuit of alternatives, several of which were articulated with the electoral processes in several countries, generating a new political cycle of progressive changes in the southern part of the continent which has now lasted for over 15 years.

In this dynamics, the labor movement of the Americas and all workers strengthened their commitment with the challenge of participating as players of the fundamental changes taking place in the construction of different alternative projects and, after the defeat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), emerged with greater strength in the continent.

The deep economic, social and political crisis, that shook nations of the developed world as of 2008 and spread across the entire planet, forced the peoples and nations of peripheral and dependent regions to face an even greater challenge: for the costs of overcoming this new crisis not be paid by workers and peoples.

Read the entire document (downloadable PDF).