While almost all federations have given expression to workers' fear, frustration, and anger, the political programs and calls to action that they put forward differ fundamentally. In all countries surveyed, the labor movement is divided into rival federations, often along ideological lines. No one federation speaks for all workers in any one country. Few unions have suggested a desire to initiate a major struggle over the crisis, and almost none talk about the need to end the capitalist system. Yet virtually all federations, even the most conservative, have felt it necessary to speak out on the damage to working-class lives and the need that the world's governments do something for working people.

We look here at response from around the world from the moderate American, Canadian and European confederations to the more radical Latin Americans and Japanese.