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!”