Tasks of revolutionists in the Spanish unions under the SP government of supporting many of the antilabor mea- contract bargaining.
The following report is from the December 17 issue of Combate, the weekly paper of the Liga Comunista Revolucionaria (LCR, Revolutionary Communist League), the section of the Fourth International for the Spanish state.
On December 11-12, the Trade-Union Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the LCR met with all the Liga's fraction heads for the various nationalities and regions. The objective of this meeting was to analyze the changes that have taken place in the workers movement and the trade-union scene since the PSOE's victory in the general elections and after the trade-union elections. was intended to update the tasks of revolutionists in the factories and unions in this new stage. The main conclusions are
1. THE CHANGES
The PSOE's victory reflected the desire for change of the great majority of the workers. It can result in a certain revitalization of the workers movement, which harbors big illusions about the prospects for change, that is, that its most elementary demands are going to
The great majority of the workers expect the new government to take a dilferent attitude than the old, more favorable to their interests. This means that they have a certain confidence in the coming government which revolutionists have to take account of. our analysis also pointed up the narrow margin that the PSOE has for undertaking the illusions that the workers hold - despite the lukewarmness of the PSOE's line - in a government that they see as clearly different than the previous ones, a government that through the UGT has the support of an important sector of the workers movement.
We are going to demand that this government actually implement some forms that, however basic, are in the interest of the workers. We are going to expose every antilabor measure or titude it adopts. We are not going to accept any social peace, no matter how big a role the PSOE plays in the government; we are going to keep on fighting the boses and the CEOE (the employers organization). Today, more than before, strength of the workers is in mobilization. But we must be very careful to focus clearly on the central enemy facing us in order to assure that the working-class actions that we promote are aimed against the bosses and not directly against the government. We will demand that the government take the side of the workers. And we will denounce it if it takes the bosses and the right.
2. THE UGT AND THE WORKERS
COMMISSIONS
In recent years, the UGT has built a union organization capable of competing with the Workers Commissions. In saying this, we are not overlooking the fact that the UGT got preferential treatment from the UCD (the ruling bourgeois party) and the CEOE to the detriment of the Workers Commissions. But that is not enough to explain the UGT's growth.
sures that the PSOE is going to try to push through with the help of the UGT
The Workers Commissions through a difficult period. Whether they
Close factory decline is manifest. Nonetheless, in this situation, they would have vast room for action if they were able to take a left turn. They could fight back effectively against the campaign designed to wear them down by adopting a strategy of mobilizing the workers. But this is not the approach of the Communist Party.
Unfortunately, the calls for forming with the UGT are not aimed at achieving unity in struggle or at keeping the UGT from being turned into a pawn of the government's economic policy. Rather, the Workers Commissions leadership wants to be included in this collaboration, to pursue the moderate course that has already led it to so many disasters. So, the task of forcing a left turn, of keeping the Workers Commissions from continuing to move to the right, falls to the left wing within the organization, the broad left wing that came forward in the last congress. We are going to keep on working to unite and coordinate this entire opposition
But within the apparatus of the Workers Commissions itself there are dissensions, if not on trade-union matters at least over the question of the independence of the union from the CP. This, combined with the growing sensitivity to the question of internal democracy, gives us an opportunity to press for an offensive to win an amnesty for all a policy of reforms, as is confirmed by grave those who have been expelled and penalthe economic propram and the first measures it adonted after taking office. This means that here, unlike in France, from the beginning the timid reforms the Social Democratic government are going to be accompanied by antiworkingclass and anti-people measures, which are going to arouse discontent and a lack of confidence. This tendency will be relatively weak at the start but will grow. We have to be attentive to it.
Unless there is strong pressure from the workers movement, there is not going to be any change. The trade-union left has considerable room for action if it is able to base itself on the desire for change that was reflected by the results of the October 29 elections. That is, if it is able to build campaigns that take into account 22
### Workers Commissions made errors, taking a course that brought them closer and closer to the moderate and conciliationist line of the UGI leader-
It was because of this that the Workers Commissions lost their dominant movement.
Today, the UGT is still better placed to continue taking the initiative. But this union confederation has major ties with the workers, and the monolithism that it has been able to impose in recent years can start to break down. The policy of "pressing the workers demands and keep ing its eyes open" ship says it is maintaining toward the PSOE - and which many members and activists in the UGT believe it is actually
- is not compatible with a course ized by the union, especially the Asturias Current, which is continuing to demand this.
3.THE NEXT PACT
The major part of the meeting was devoted to what is involved in the coming negotiations between the unions and the bosses over the pact on guidelines for bargaining in the contract renewal talks. The sort of pact that is shaping up is quite similar to the AMI that the UGT and the CEOE signed in 1980, which was so disastrous for the workers. We came to the conclusion that after the experience of these last years a new guidelines pact would have a very bad effect on the
most honored in the breach. But we can- the government that exist now and quite weak. In Guipuzcoa, however, it got 10% of the vote in the engineering
At the same time, this was the province where the CUIS was weakest.
In general, the LAB increased its vote, but only very slightly.
Fourth Internationalist ran on Workers Commissions slates mainly, but also on UGT and LAB slates. They made gains, especially in Guipuzcoa.
Instead of a move to take advantage of the relationship of forces won by the October 28 electoral victory to gain better positions than we have had for some years, to stop the loss of buying power, and get better contracts, this pact represents an attempt to bypass the demand for change. It is an attempt to start by throwing away the electoral victory and the chance for better conditions for the
Particularly disturbing is the long not expect big actions right away to put pressure on the government. So, what we have to do is to continue a policy of opposing restructuration, of unequivocally supporting the workers struggles that break out over such question. the same time, we have to take advantage of the better possibilities for pressuring solidarity and unity. We the promised reform of the Unemployment Statute right now, and to build a movement around this question that keep the unemployed organized, around the unions in particular, and demand that not a single jobless person be left without compensation.
Union elections chain of provisions about productivity, absenteeism, establishing shift syssince the PSOE victory tems, mobility of labor, and flexible hours. If these were actually included in the contracts, they would mean great deterioration in working conditions and
Since the victory of the Socialist Party (PSOE) in the October 28 a new blow for the working class.
tions, shop-steward and factory committee elections have been held in two key
So, the No.1 activity of the LCR in areas in the Spanish state - in Madrid and in the Basque country.
movement in the coming
In Madrid, the renewal of factory representatives went much more slowly weeks is going to be opposition to this than in the last round of elections in 1980, when 6,700 workplaces elected repre sentatives. By late November, only 20% of that number had held new elections guidelines pact. We know that the condiworkplaces, the relationship of forces between the UGT (Union tions are going to be difficult, because
General de Trabajadores — General Workers Union, the PSOE-dominated confedthey are going to present it as an agree-
Workers Commissions (which historically have been dominated ment guaranteeing buying power, which by the Communist Party) remained substantially the same.
is false; and they are going to take advanthe UGT has been gaining ground rapidly in the small enterprises, tage of the illusions and expectations where it has been running a better organized campaign than the Workers Comcreated by the elections to say that this is a different sort of pact than in the
The Madrid area UGT leadership is a housebroken one. The majority of the old provincial leadership opposed the pact with the bosses that was pushed by the past. Therefore, we are going to be care-
PSOE leaders and the union bureaucrats tied most tightly to it. So, this majority ful about the kind of pedagogy and arguwas overturned bureaucratically by the Social Democratic machine.
ments we use, but we are going to oppose
On the other hand, at its last congress, the local organization of the Workers this pact resolutely.
Commissions established a considerable margin of trade-union independence. The
First of all, we will explain in the facslate supported by the CP apparatus was defeated. Since then a majority of the tories why a guidelines pact is a bad present leadership has broken with the CP and taken a more militant line of action thing, and why platforms have to be prein trade-union struggles, exemplified by its role in building the Getafe general pared for the contract bargaining that will maintain buying power and lead to
In the Basque country, the situation is much more complicated. The Coma progressive reduction of working hours, munist Party has never been a major electoral force in this area, where the left is dominated by radicalized nationalist currents. In the October 28 elections, which will contain provisions that guaran-
Secondly, we have to wage besides the all-Spain confederations, there are two nationalist a strenuous campaign in the unions to country, the Basque Workers Union, which is linked to assure that many do not sign the pact.
the moderate nationalist party, the PNV; and the LAB, linked to the radicalized
We are going to give this work a high priority, especially in the Workers Com-
EMK, the Basque equivalent of the Movimiento Comunista de Espana, a left missions, where many bodies are already centrist group, supported independent slates, the CUIS.
opposed to the pact.
We are going to in the Workers Commissions, but allowed the CP to push it out.
work to extend this attitude, to demand
The results differed widely according to the locality. In general, the Workers
Commissions are much stronger than the CP. The Workers Commissions did best that the union be consulted, and to where they were most clearly independent of the CP, notably in the province press for the expression of broad opof Guipuzcoa, where the CP apparatus does not fully control the union and the position to the pact before it is signed.
Fourth Internationalists have a strong presence.
We are going to fight for this in close sions got 20.3% of the delegates, topping the UGT by 50%.
unity with all those who share the same
Alava, where the Workers Commissions are tightly
This is the best way to consolidate they suttered a setback, getting only 14%. The CUlS gained a dominant posi the left opposition that is so necessary tion in the engineering industry in this province.
Workers Commissions the process having been initiated by bureaucratic expulsions.
It was Th Alava that the UGT got its best result, 32.3% of the delegates. This is
4.UNEMPLOYMENT also the province where the UGT leadership has been most independent of the all-Spain leadership, standing clearly to its left.
Analysis of the government's econoover the STV, which got only 23.3%, and that was mainly in the small workmic orientation did not leave much hope that the PSOE would keep its election
Viscaya, the STV remained the strongest force with 28.4%.
promise to create 800,000 jobs in the got 22.5%, but got the highest vote in the large life of this parliament. To the contrary,
Workers Commissions (with 19.87%) remained dominant in the Bilbao we are faced with a drastic restructuraarea, the main working-class center in the Basque country, where a large percentage of the workers are not of Basque origin.
tion policy in all industries that threatens
STV doubled its percentage (to 16%) in Navarra, the largely to wipe out tens of thousands of jobs. At hispanicized province that has not officially been included in the same time, there is no indication anywhere of how the government is going to
The LAB increased its percentage somewhat in Viscaya. In Alava it remained create jobs. Reform of the Employment
Statute to extend unemployment insurance has not yet been put on the agenda.
It is precisely in the area of unemployment that the election promises will be it was virtually wiped out.
In addition, unions in the Basque nationalist party, Herri Batasuna (HB industrial
Notably, the general elect-
- The People United). Moreover, the
Here, the Workers Commiscontrolled by the CP,
It was here that the depart-
Commissions made the most impact,
It gained a major lead
The UGT and the Basque
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