Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union confederation.
Founded in 1910 in Barcelona from groups brought together by the trade union Solidaridad Obrera, it significantly expanded the role of anarchism in Spain, which can be traced to the creation of the Spanish chapter of the IWA in 1870 and its successor organization, the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region. Despite several decades when the organization was illegal in Spain, the CNT continues to participate in the Spanish worker's movement, focusing its efforts on the principles of workers' self-management, federalism, and mutual aid.
Historically affiliated with the International Workers' Association, in 2018, the CNT and other unions founded the International Confederation of Labour.
Organization and function
The CNT says of its membership, "We make no distinction at the time of admission, we require only that you are a worker or a student, employed or unemployed. The only people who cannot join are those belonging to repressive organizations, employers or other exploiters".As a union organization, and in accordance with its bylaws, the aims of the CNT are to "develop a sense of solidarity among workers", hoping to improve their conditions under the current social system, prepare them for future emancipation, when the
means of production have been socialized, to practice mutual aid amongst CNT collectives, and maintain relationships with other like-minded groups hoping for emancipation of the entire working class. The CNT is also concerned with issues beyond the working class, desiring a radical transformation of society through revolutionary syndicalism. To achieve their goal of social revolution, the organization has outlined a social-economic system through the confederal concept of anarchist communism, which consists of a series of general ideas proposed for the organization of an anarchist society. The CNT draws inspiration from anarchist ideas, and also identifies with the struggles of different social movements. The CNT is internationalist, but also supports communities' right of self-determination and their sovereignty over the state.
The CNT is rooted in three basic principles: workers' self-management or autogestión, federalism and mutual aid, and considers that work conflicts must be settled between employers and employees without the action of such intermediaries as official state organisms or professional unionists. This is why the union criticizes union elections and works councils as means of control for managers, preferring workers' assemblies, union sections and direct action. Also, when possible, the CNT avoids taking legal action through the courts. Administrative positions in the union rotate and are unpaid.
Structure
The organizational structure of the CNT is based on direct democracy.The industrial unions form the base structure of the CNT. Each industrial union groups together workers of different crafts within an industry. When there are fewer than 25 people working in one particular industry, a various posts union is formed for that industry, rather than multiple industry unions. A various posts union can include workers from different crafts and industries; it requires a minimum of five people. If this number cannot be reached, four or fewer workers can form a confederal group. Due to the small size of the CNT, a majority of its unions are various posts unions.
The decision-making power of the industry and various posts unions resides in the union assembly: decisions are taken by all of the workers of the union in question via a system of direct democracy and consensus. These assemblies may address any number of issues, whether "local, provincial, regional, national or international".
Unlike organizations that are organized from the top down, the CNT organises itself in an anarchistic fashion, from the bottom up, through different levels of confederations, following the Principle of Federation. The reason for favoring this structure is intended to limit homogeneity in committees, and keep them from having politics or programs. It is also intended to minimize the power of individuals who may be more active in the organization.
The different industry and various posts unions of a particular municipality constitute the local federation of unions that are coordinated by means of a local committee which has the same characteristics and powers as the union committees. The local committee is selected in the local plenary assembly to which every industry and various posts union can send delegations with written agreements previously adopted in their assembly. CNT has Local Federations in Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and Seville.
Direct representatives of the industry and various posts unions attend the CNT Congress with agreements from their own assemblies, independently from the local and regional levels. Among its duties, the Congress has to decide upon the CNT general line of action, and can appoint new National Committees. The initial constitutional congress was in September 1911, a year after the CNT's foundation.
All organs and trade unions within the CNT may have their own media. Solidaridad Obrera is the journal of the Regional Confederation of Labor of Catalonia. It was established in 1907, being the oldest communication medium of the CNT. Other media are La tira de papel, the Graphic Arts, Media and Shows National Coordinator bulletin; the Cenit, newspaper of the Regional Committee of the Exterior; and BICEL, edited by the Anselmo Lorenzo Foundation, which was created in 1987.
Voting
The CNT generally avoids bringing matters to a vote, preferring consensus decision-making, which it considers to be more in tune with its anarchist principles. While pure consensus is plausible for individual base unions, higher levels of organizations cannot completely avoid the need for some type of vote, which is always done openly by a show of hands.The CNT attempts to minimize this problem by a system of limited proportional voting. Even so, this system has some failures and may discriminate against unions with larger memberships. As an example, "ten unions with 25 adherents would total 250 members having 10 votes. This would be more votes than a union of 2,500, which with 10 times more members would only have the right to 7 votes." Within the CNT this isn't considered a major problem, because agreements tend to reach consensus after long discussions. However, due to the nature of consensus decision-making, the final agreements consensed to may bear little resemblance to the initial proposals brought to the table.
History
The early years
In 1910, in the middle of the restoration, the CNT was founded in Barcelona in a congress of the Catalan trade union Solidaridad Obrera with the objective of constituting an opposing force to the then-majority trade union, the socialist UGT and "to speed up the economic emancipation of the working class through the revolutionary expropriation of the bourgeoisie". The CNT started small, counting 26,571 members represented through several trade unions and other confederations. In 1911, coinciding with its first congress, the CNT initiated a general strike that provoked a Barcelona judge to declare the union illegal.From 1918 on the CNT grew stronger. Around that time, panic spread among employers, giving rise to the practice of pistolerismo, causing a spiral of violence which significantly affected the trade union. These pistoleros were known to have killed 21 union leaders in 48 hours. The CNT had an outstanding role in the events of the La Canadiense general strike, which paralyzed 70% of industry in Catalonia in 1919, the year the CNT reached a membership of 700,000. In 1922 the International Workingmen's Association was founded in Berlin; the CNT joined immediately. However, the following year, with the rise of Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, the labor union was again outlawed.
In 1927 with the "moderate" positioning of some cenetistas the Federación Anarquista Ibérica, an association of anarchist affinity groups, was created in Valencia. The FAI would play an important role during the following years through the so-called trabazón with the CNT, that is, the presence of FAI elements in the CNT, encouraging the labor union not to move away from its anarchist principles, an influence that continues today.
The Second Republic
After the fall of the monarchy in 1931, the CNT offered minimal support to the Second Republic. This support decreased progressively during the years between 1931 and 1933 because of constant confrontations with the republican authorities in the successive general strikes, including the 1931 Barcelona rent strike. The end of that period was marked by so-called revolutions of January and December, both of which were swiftly suppressed by the government. In those days the CNT functioned primarily in Catalonia, but was also gaining importance in other regions, such as Andalusia and Aragon.In Ceuta, the CNT's organ was the weekly Despertar, launched in December 1931, but its publication was discontinued the next year.
Tensions between the radical faístas, or FAI members, and the moderate non-faístas were constant and difficult to analyze because of the decentralized and sectorial nature of the organization. Finally, in 1931 a group of moderates published the Manifesto of the Thirty, which would give rise to Treintism, and in 1932 Ángel Pestaña split from the CNT to create the Syndicalist Party.
In January 1932 a revolutionary strike organized by the CNT took place in Alt Llobregat, Catalonia. In some places the workers took control of the streets and proclaimed libertarian communism replacing the republican flags with the red and black ones. The strike was suppressed by the use of the police and the military and several leading figures of the workers' side were arrested and some deported to Spanish colonies in Africa.
In January 1933 a revolution was carried out by the CNT. The first acts of the insurrection took place on January 1, with bombs exploding in La Fulguera, Asturias, and street riots in Seville, Lleida and Pedro Muñoz. By 8 January the revolution had spread to most of Spain reaching its greatest resonance in Andalusia. The revolution was violently suppressed: in Bugarra, where the workers had proclaimed libertarian communism after an intense combat with the police, the Guardia Civil retook control of the town and killed 10 peasants while also detaining 250 more. The most well-known case of repression was the Casas Viejas incident which discredited the government partly leading to its electoral defeat in 1933 elections. During riots in Casas Viejas, where workers had proclaimed libertarian communism, two police officers were wounded, leading the government to send larger police forces to arrest rioters and stop the rebellion. Many peasants fled the town but a group of anarchists resisted arrest and were barricaded in the house of an anarchist, Francisco Cruz Gutiérrez. When the guards under the command of Captain Rojas arrived, they set the house on fire with the anarchists and their families still inside. Everyone inside the house was killed except for Maria Silva Cruz and a little boy. The police then gathered all villagers who owned a gun, marched them to the ashes of the burned house and shot them dead.
The third insurrection carried out by the CNT during the Second Spanish Republic was in December 1933 after the 1933 elections. It had its epicenter in Zaragoza and more generally in Aragon and La Rioja and it extended to parts of Extremadura, Andalusia, Catalonia and the mining basin of León. It lasted about a week before being completely dominated by law enforcement and in some places by the intervention of the army.
The two years governed by the coalition of the center to center-right Partido Republicano Radical and the right to far-right CEDA were marked by mostly clandestine CNT activity, in the face of severe government repression. During the socialist Revolution of October 1934 the CNT participated only from the background. However, the CNT's Regional Confederation of Labor of Asturias, León and Palencia actively participated in the revolution because of its loyalty to workers' alliances, this time formalized through the Uníos Hermanos Proletarios in the pact with the UGT and the Asturian Socialist Federation. Thus, in La Felguera and in El Llano district of Gijón there were short periods when anarchist communism was put into practice:
The CNT held a congress in Saragossa on 1 May 1936, ratifying the position that the union should make no pacts with any political party, despite UGT leader Largo Caballero's attempts to persuade the union to stand in unity with the UGT. On 1 June, the CNT joined the UGT in declaring a strike of "building workers, mechanics, and lift operators." A demonstration was held, 70,000 workers strong. Members of the Falange attacked the strikers. The strikers responded by looting shops, and the police reacted by attempting to suppress the strike. By the beginning of July, the CNT was still fighting, while the UGT had agreed to arbitration. In retaliation to the attacks by the Falangists, anarchists killed three bodyguards of the Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The government then closed the CNT's centers in Madrid, and arrested David Antona and Cipriano Mera, two CNT militants.