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WFTU urges IMF, World Bank and G-7 countries to draw appropriate lessons from memorandum of Mexian parliamentarians for and end to imposition of neoliberal economic policies

WFTU Press Release, 19 January 1996

In their recent memoradum to the government, the large majority of Mexican parliamentarians belonging to the ruling party urged the government to redefine its policy approach and called for an abandonment of the neo-liberal economic policies which have already resulted in job losses of over one million and other severe social consequences, aggravating mass poverty in the country in this International Year for the Eradication of Poverty.

This memorandum shows that ever wider sections of public opinion now agree with the well-known positions of the trade union movement in Latin America and other regions about the economic and social crisis and its severe consequences for the people, especially in the developing countries, provoked by the neo-liberal economic policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank which are controlled by the finance cartels in the G-7 countries. Serious criticism of these policies was expressed at the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) in Copenhagen (March 1995) and Governments commited themselves at the Summit to ensure that when structural adjustment programmes are agreed to, they include social development goals, in particular eradicating poverty, promoting full and productive employment, and enhancing social integration (Commitment No.8).

The WFTU therefore urges the United Nations to take appropriate steps in the framework of implementing the decisions of the WSSD to secure an immediate end to the imposition of neo-liberal economic policies by the IMF and World Bank and ask member governments to honour their commitments made at the WSSD to provide a social dimension to all economic policies.

This should, indeed, be the principal programme for the observance of the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty this year, as decided by the U.N.General Assembly.

The WFTU also calls upon all international, regional and national trade union organisations to work together to secure an end to the economic and social attacks on the working people by the forces of neoliberalism and achieve the implementation of the WSSD Declaration and Commitments, in the spirit of the discussions and conclusions of the Trade Union Forum held in Copenhagen.

World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)
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