Read this article in:
10 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 61/2001
The imminent crisis of energy supply in Latin America and the Caribbean is the focus of discussions currently under way between energy workers' unions there.
Trade union leaders from the region's energy sector in the sector opened their meeting in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. They are drawing up alternative energy proposals for the region.
The Third Regional Energy Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean is sponsored by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). Represented at the talks are energy unions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago and Uruguay. Union leaders from Canada, France, Portugal, South Africa and the United States are also taking part.
The conference, which will continue until September 13, will analyse the energy sector on the national and international level, and will discuss possible energy policy alternatives. It will also help to develop international trade union networks in the oil, gas, electricity, and coal industries.
The process of restructuring and privatisation of the energy sector that is ongoing throughout Latin America and the Caribbean has negatively affected the day-to-day lives of the region's workers in the energy sector and the population in general. The conference will discuss the function of governments, public and private companies, social control, and sustainable alternatives for the energy sector.
"We have to radically transform the neo-liberal politics that the governments of the region are following, which have resulted in social suffering, upheaval and unemployment for workers and the poor," said Luiz Gonzaga Ulhoa Tenorio, president of Brazil's Urban Workers Union Federation (FNU-CUT) and chairman of the ICEM's Latin America & Caribbean Region.
"We have to invert the logic of capital accumulation and counter the absolute power of the multinational corporations," said Gonzaga, "to develop energy policies that put the social and public interest and needs above the interests and needs of the market."