Latin American
Unions Adopt Radical Energy Agenda:
“De-privatize,
Democratize, De-commodify.”
From October 8 to 11, 2018,
representatives from 15 countries throughout the Americas met in San
José, Costa Rica, for the Third
Regional Conference on Energy, Environment and Work. The
meeting, convened by the Trade Union Confederation of
the Americas (TUCA-CSA), brought together 20
trade union centers affiliated to TUCA and 4 which are fraternal, 7
continental social movements, 4 civil society organizations and 5
universities.
For three days, the group discussed how to respond to the predatory
and repressive actions of mining and drilling companies across the
continent. There was unanimous support expressed for
"Democratization of Energy" and
"De-Privatization" and the recovery of sovereignty over
resources. The meeting issued the following declaration:
A delegation of trade unionists from the Trade Union
Confederation of the Americas will be bringing a strong pro-public
message to the UN climate change negotiations in Katowice, Poland, in
December this year.
From the Declaration:
Democratization
of Energy
We
must conceive of energy as a fundamental right for a country’s entire
population and, as such, it must be defended as a public service.
This right is essential if people are to exercise their fundamental
human and social rights, their integration into social life, and
uphold their dignity.
The
first demand of the working class is to end energy poverty. That is,
ensure that everyone have access to the energy required to maintain
basic standards of family life and mobility. Our income must not be
corroded by the expenses incurred to cover said basic needs.
We
affirm the need to democratize energy, because we understand that far
from being just a debate between state planners, sector technicians
and managers of large companies, it has to be society, through
democratic and transparent mechanisms of popular participation, who
define what energy we want to develop, how, for what purposes and for
whom, and in doing so question, among other things, the excessive
consumption patterns of the elites. It is not enough to discuss
changes in the energy mix, we must debate the energy policy in
relation to our desired vision for national and regional development.
Given
this vision, the labor movement together with grassroots
organizations has an affirmative agenda:
De-privatization
of the sector, given that the logic of private profit is opposed to
the logic of satisfying the needs of peoples and nations;
Recovery
of sovereignty over our resources and common goods, breaking
commitments that require accepting systems of impunity for large
transnational companies that operate in the energy sector or that use
it intensively in our countries and territories while taking
advantage of free trade agreements and investment protections;
Discussion
regarding the role and application of technology within a democratically-decided
national project. We must not accept technological determinisms
imposed and manipulated by corporate interests nor that, under the
pretext of transition, reinforce dependence on technological
development centers in the Global North;
We
must increasingly move towards the de-commodification and
de-fossilization of our energy matrix, from a vision of transition
based on democratic, social, and environmental justice
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