orkers battle to break chain

Condensed from WFTU Review

In Spain the only legal trade
unions are those organized and
manipulated by the ‘government,
which seats and unseats their
leaders. Progressive trade union-
ists are obliged to belong to
them; they pay high dues in or-
der. to maintain a trade union
subjugated to the employers and
acting against the workers’ in-
terests. Strikes and other forms
of action by the workers take
place in spite of and against the
official unions. The only relation-
ship between the Workers’ Com-
missions and the unions’ so-
called legality is the use they
make of it as a platform of strug-
gle to attack capitalism from in-
side and outside.

In spite of systematic repres-
sion by Franco’s vicious anti-
working class dictatorship, the
Spanish workers have recently
waged. substantial struggles
which show the extent of the
mass movement in the country.
The Asturian miners, living up
to their tradition of militancy,
have remained on a constant war
footing, waging partial or gen-
eral strikes against the Hunosa
coal monopoly in defense of the
rights of miners who contract
silicosis, and against the conti-
nual fatal accident.

The tension of struggle has

extended: to the engineering
sector at Gijon and the port
workers of Musel. The Basque
metal - workers demonstrated
their maturity by waging a 21-
day struggle in the difficult cir-
cumstances of a “state of emer-
gency.” This strike spread to the
main factories of Biscay and
Guipuzcoa, confirming the new
forms of workers’ struggle with
the election of committees by
mass meetings. Nearly 50,000
Catalan workers at Barcelona,
Bajo, Llobregat, Tarrasa, Sada-
bell, Badalona and Mataro struck
for wage increases in excess of
the 5.9 percent decreed by the
government.

A shining example of solidar-
ity was the strike at the. Super

Ser mill at Pampeluna which
lasted more than a forthnight,
with daily meetings and solidar-
ity stoppages in the main fac-
tories of the town. Faced: with
the threat of a general strike
throughout the province the em-
ployers had to concede the
workers’ demands. .

The workers in the main

branches of production in: Seville
have been a constant focus of
conflict: Abonos Sevilla (chemic-
als), Hispano Aviacion (engin-
eering), Hitasa (textiles), Entre-
canales (building), El Cano (ship

In Facist Spain

General Franco, the aging Spanish dictator, reviewing his

movement is involving farm la-
borers, small landowners and
technicians. This is a movement
of opposition to monopoly capi-
tal and the big landowners who
leave land uncultivated while
thousands and thousands of
peasants have no work, or who
cultivate the best land in colla-
boration with foreign capital,
and plunder and exploit the agri-
cultural workers as in feudal
times.

All over the country, from the

backward areas of the south .

where the wage-earning peasant

tanks which have kept him in power since February 1939.

building) and public transport
have been in the forefront of a
great struggle for the workers’
demands.

In Madrid, apart from the bit-
ter struggle waged by the en-
gineering workers, there has
been a substantial mass move-
ment by bank and insurance em-
ployees with meetings at labor
halls and demonstrations by
thousands of employees in the
centre of the capital in support
of their demand for/a collective
agreement.

IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
There are also Workers’ Com-
missions in the countryside
which are rapidly organizing the
Spanish peasants. The peasant

Spanish Workers’ Commission
P.O. BOX 5275, - ;
POSTAL STATION A,

TORONTO 1,
CANADA.

Dear Brothers:

ONT.

Thirty years after the Spanish Civil War, Spanish workers

continue to fight against the Franco dictatorship.
repression, thousands of worke.s in Spain are now in jail.
thousands of workers are on strike throughout Spain.
and famii.es need your support.

Due to increased
At present
These workers

During the last ten years Workers! Commissions have been
organized based on a broad united front policy without regard to

political or religious affiliation.

The main struggle undertaken by

the Workers! Commission is to win full trade union rights to organize
strikes, pickets and the right to bargain.

The Commissions fight openly for their legal recognition in
spite of Franco's decree that they are illegal.

The Spanish Workers! Commissions appeal to all Spanish
immigrants, wher2ver they may live, to make the Spanish workers! cause

known to brother unions.

We appeal for your financial and moral support.

Also, we

are appealing for unions to send contributions and messages of support
to the Spanish Workers! Commission, P.O. Box 5275, Postal Station A,

Toronto 1, Ontario.

In addition, may we urge you to send messages and telegrams

of protest to the Franco government.

Fraternally yours,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 27, 1970—Page 8

PUAN SIU

b IDA

population predominate (in An-
dalusia alone there are half a
million agricultural workers) to
the rich lands of Catalonia and
the east, many small land-own-
ers, share-croppers and. peasants
are following the example of the
industrial workers, organizing
open meetings and putting for-
ward their program of struggle,
using _, organizations (coopera-
tives, unions, etc.) created by the
Franco regime to exploit them.

In Rinconada, a province of
Seville, the peasants: have waged
a whole series of struggles. They
were being offered starvation
wages for picking cotton. A
wave of protest spread among
the men and women involved,
who organized to defend them-
selves. The workers in the Work-
ers’ and Peasants’ Commissions
coordinated and led the strug-
gle. The landowners called in
the Civil Guard and the leaders
of the action were arrested and
maltreated, But the mass of the
peasants responded, securing the
provisional release of those in
jail, stoning representatives of
the police force and finally win-
ning their demands. Some of the
leaders of this action had been
tried and sentenced.

STUDENTS AND YOUTH

Another feature of the new
Spanish working class movement
has been its contact with the
student movement. The students
of today are the technicians and
specialists of tomorrow. The
Workers’ Commissions have un-
derstood this and are working
for the establishment of an al-
liance between the _ industrial
workers, peasants, students,
technicians and _ professional
workers of all kinds.

Workers’ Commissions are a
form of social and political ~c-
tivity in which young wirkers
can play an extensive part.
Young workers have their own
program of demands and organ-
ize their own struggle in co-
ordination with the objectives
of the rest of the Workers
Commission movement. The big
industrial firms contain large

~ plies could give the outsider the

fascist government as. criminal,

ya

supervised opportunities of
municating, with  inaded
food and medical care.
The Spanish regime ha
cently been manoeuvring
to legalize its dictatorship.’
‘being trying to impose ils t
union law” which is, esis
purely to make the situ®)
worse. The intention is (M0
trade unions should contiill] s

groups of young workers
core of the labor force in the
factory, but they have their own
problems. In Spain there is also
the main problem of the disper-
sal of young workers in the
large number of Small industrial
and commercial firms. The
Young Workers’ Commissions
are beginning to face up to this
problem and to bring these

young workers together and be State-controlled, 4
discuss policy with them in the competitors, compulsoryy
districts where they live. posed from above. The 8%."

ment is planning to give 17's

GOVERNMENT TACTICS
Workers’ strikes and assem-

powers it has not hitherto)”
such as the right of comple
suppressing a union OF ©
and of arbitrarily dividiné |
ual workers and technici®™
-there have in the past beer
vestiges of workers’ reprrt i
tion, the intention now .
away with them altogetit?

The attempt is being Mg
push this law through 9°)
massive opposition from)
workers, despite ins
from the ILO, statements ¥
Catholic hierarchy and * |
public opinion.

INTERNATIONAL SOLDDAY)

Penetration into Spain "A
ternational capitalism has”
that hundreds of 3
of Spanish workel®
now exploited by such Not
Fiat, Renault, Citroen, it
Siemens, Marconi and +” Be
million Spaniards are als0 é
ing and struggling abroa@ "gn
der to shoulder with Frend
gian, Swiss, Italian OF ~) gse
workers, creating links :2
darity: . Their,;.common; 7 iif
Spanish; working ;,classh
ence is transmitté
up firm bases for greater

impression of a certain degree of
legality in Spain. Nothing is
further from the truth. The real-
ity is that this action which is
being waged all over the country
represents the exercise of a right
recognized in law (as the ILO
Study Group has rightly pointed
out), but is considered by the

and results in hundreds of work-
ers being thrown into jail. Thous-
ands of workers are dismissed
for the precise reason of having
defended such fundamental
rights as the right to strike and
the right of association and of
expression. This is not a question
of inadequate legality, but of a
situation in which there is a
total ‘absence of elementary
human rights.

For defending these rights
trade unionists are today still
being tried and sentenced. Many
hundreds of trade unionists are
serving long prison sentences.
They are scattered all over the
country, isolated from one an-
other, in small groups in differ-
ent prisons, with restricted and

Oropos prison camp by the fascist junta, smuggled
he composed, together with a message that reads in part: ve BS
third year in this country we have been fighting the tyrant 4
we are still fighting against it . . . We trust our people and %

lieve that they will find a way to fight against dictatorship.
The words of the song, in translation, are: . : me

The father in exile and the home deserted
We live in tyranny, and the very dark, and
You my poor abandoned people, remember us:

Now the mother cries alone and so do trees, birds
' and beaches.

The night is coming without love, remember us :
my poor abandoned people.

Behind the bars our hearts a’beating as before
for liberty, love and peace.

Remember ‘us, my poor abandoned people.

]

“Ah, this little place should be good for another twenty
. years!”