The proposal of this paper is to discuss, from the case of São Paulo ABC, the strategies unions created in contexts of economic crisis, and analyze the mechanisms of mobilization triggered to propose political-institutional alternatives in a regional framework, in order to protect and encourage the creation of jobs and to address the social effects of layoffs of workers. The main hypothesis is that the action of trade unions with a tradition of labor struggle, institutional density and national and regional political accumulation, with active channels for dialogue with national, state and municipal governments and with strength to raise their categories, eventually play a decisive role, and somehow an innovative one in designing new institutional mechanisms to discuss political strategies for dealing with the difficulties imposed on localities and regions, starting to exert their influence in new conceptions built on situations of regional economic crisis.
economic crisis; union; productive territories; region of ABC-Brazil