The goal of this text is to discuss and problematize the new practices by the metal worker unionists in São Paulo's ABC region, which implies the direct involvement of the entities which represent workers outside the actual factory in the debate regarding development strategies and their ramifications in the regional context of a global economy. We will analyze union actions during two different periods (the 1990s and 2000 - 2009) and as a synthesis of this process, we will focus on a political event organized and held by the metal workers' union in 2009, a seminar called "The ABC of Dialog and Development", which reveals the different insertions and perspectives of the social actors at the local, regional and national levels in the search for alternatives regarding the worldwide economic crisis of 2008. The event exemplifies a public meeting which despite not doing away with the contradictions and conflicts of a social reality marked by the asymmetry of positions in the social structure, created a moment of temporary consensus regarding the threats of a setting hostile to workers.
Union Action; Regional Development; São Paulo's ABC; Economic Crisis