The General Confederation of Labour (Spanish: Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT) is a Spanish trade union federation.
The CGT was a result of a split in the anarchist National Confederation of Labour (CNT). In 1979, at the first CNT congress after Spain's transition to democracy, there was a fundamental disagreement concerning union elections. Such elections allow Spanish workers to elect union delegates to factory committees every four years. Some deemed this a renewal of anarcho-syndicalism, but the more orthodox in the organization considered such elections a "government intervention in labour–capital relations". Moreover, this would involve receiving state funding.[2] The two factions split and there were two CNTs. They fought over ownership of the name CNT. In 1989, the orthodox CNT prevailed in court and the renovators took the name CGT.[3]
The CGT has since participated in union elections since 1989, receiving the fourth most votes behind CCOO, the UGT, and the CSIF. It has 100,000 members, as of 2018.[4]
Since the division of the CNT in 2018, with the formation of the ICL/CIT (International Confederation of Labour) the CGT has developed a constructive relationship with the CNT-CIT and another union with roots in the CGT, Solidaridad Obrera . This resulted in a joint statement of intent by the three organisations to work productively together in April 2023. The alliance is to be known as "La Confluencia Anarcosindicalista".[5]
References
- ^ Bayona, Eduardo (27 January 2024). "La afiliación a los sindicatos crece al calor de los avances sociales y salariales" [Union membership rises as social and wage gains are being made]. Público (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 June 2024.
- ^ Ealham 2015, pp. 267–273; Pascual 2018
- ^ Ealham 2015, pp. 267–273; El País 1989
- ^ Pascual 2018.
- ^ "CGT, CNT y Solidaridad Obrera: Acuerdo para la unidad de acción. Un paso histórico para el anarcosindicalismo" [CGT, CNT and Workers' Solidarity: Agreement for unity of action. A historic step for anarcho-syndicalism.]. CGT (in Spanish). April 2023.
Sources
- El País (1989). "La CNT renovada adopta de forma provisional las siglas CGT" [The renewed CNT provisionally adopts the acronym CGT]. El País (in Spanish).
- Ealham, Chris (2015). Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement. Oakland/Edinburgh: AK Press.
- Pascual, Alfredo (2018). "Del 8M a Amazon: CNT y CGT resucitan a costa de los dinosaurios sindicales" [From 8M to Amazon: CNT and CGT resurrect at the expense of union dinosaurs]. El Confidencial (in Spanish).
Further reading
- Buier, Natalia (2020). "High-Speed Contradictions: Spanish Railways between Economic Criticism and Political Defense". In Birch, Kean; Muniesa, Fabian (eds.). Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism. pp. 127–148. doi:10.7551/mitpress/12075.001.0001. ISBN 9780262359030.
- Cockburn, Cynthia (2012). "Legitimate Disobedience: An Anti-militarist Movement in Spain". Anti-militarism. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230378391_4. ISBN 9780230378391.
- Correa, Felipe (2023). "The Global Revival of Anarchism and Syndicalism". In van der Linden, Marcel (ed.). The Cambridge History of Socialism. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. pp. 621–647. doi:10.1017/9781108611022.027. ISBN 978-1-108-48134-2.
- Gallas, Alexander (2024). "Changing Terrains: The General and Feminist General Strikes in Spain". Exiting the Factory. Vol. 2. Bristol University Press. pp. 152–197. doi:10.51952/9781529242249.ch008.
- Gutiérrez, José Antonio; Font, Jordi Martí (2023). "October 2017 in Catalonia: The anarchists and the procés". Nations and Nationalism. 29 (1): 209–228. doi:10.1111/nana.12896. ISSN 1354-5078.
- Las Heras, Jon; Roca, Beltrán (2023). "New practices in industrial relations: radical unionism in the European periphery". In Fernández Rodríguez, Carlos; Martínez Lucio, Miguel (eds.). Work and Employment Relations in Southern Europe. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 137–162. doi:10.4337/9781789909548.00012. ISBN 9781789909531.
- Hirsch, Steven J.; van der Walt, Lucien (2010b). "Final Reflections: the vicissitudes of anarchist and syndicalist trajectories, 1940 to the present". In Hirsch, Steven J.; van der Walt, Lucien (eds.). Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940. Studies in Global Social History. Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill. pp. 395–412. ISBN 9789004188495. OCLC 868808983.
- Roca, Beltrán (2015). "Day labourers, radical unionism and collective action in Andalusia". Labor History. 56 (2): 180–197. doi:10.1080/0023656X.2015.1029817.
- Roca, Beltrán (2016). "The Role of Social Networks in Trade Union Recruitment: The Case Study of a Radical Union in Spain". Global Labour Journal. 7 (1): 20–34. doi:10.15173/glj.v7i1.2354. ISSN 1918-6711.
- Romanos, Eduardo (2011). "Factionalism in Transition: A Comparison of Ruptures in the Spanish Anarchist Movement". Historical Sociology. 24 (3): 355–380. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6443.2011.01401.x.
- Romanos, Eduardo; Ledesma, José Luis (2016). "May Day in Spain: Socialist and Anarchist Traditions". The Ritual of May Day in Western Europe. Routledge. ISBN 9781315553344.
- van der Walt, Lucien; Schmidt, Michael (2009). "Dual Unionism, Reforms, and Other Tactical Debates". Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. Edinburgh: AK Press. pp. 211–238. ISBN 978-1-904859-16-1. LCCN 2006933558. OCLC 1100238201.
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