CNT

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C.N.T., Loor a Los Heroes by Arturo Ballester

The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ("National Confederation of Labour" or "CNT"), founded in Barcelona, Spain, in 1910, was at one time that country's largest labour union.

It is the main Anarchist organization in Spain, and prominent in combating the coup d'état by General Francisco Franco that led to the Spanish Civil War in 1936. It is also the name of Marxist or Syndicalist labour confederations in countries from France (Confédération nationale du travail) to Panama.

1 History
2 Symbols
3 Objectives
4 Methods
5 References
- 5.1 Film
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

The CNT was born with the objective of constituting an outstanding force in opposition to the majority union, the socialist General Union of Workers (UGT). Its initial foundation found it in the Catalan anarco-syndicalism of Labor Solidarity, born in 1908. In the I Congress of the CNT (taken place in 1911, year in which the union received its name officially) a general strike, reason for the one was already summoned which the union was declared illegal up to 1914. From 1916, the Confederation changed its performance strategy regarding the UGT: it began relationships with this union and both reached the agreement of summoning the general strike of 1917 jointly. The bonds among both organizations were narrowed and, in the II Congress of the CNT (1919), the possibility was formulated of unifying the two unions to propitiate the cohesion of the proletariat. In this congress the provisional linking was approved from the CNT to III International but, after the visit of the directing Ángel Lash to the Federated Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia (the territorial nucleus of where in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would arise), this dissuaded the incorporation, and in 1922 the CNT moved definitively away from that organization.

The significant invigoration of the anarchist union took place starting from 1918, moment in that the crisis of the Catalan industry impelled to workers' thousands to affiliate to the organization. With the purpose of counteracting the force acquired by the organized labor mass, the bosses financed pistolerismo ("gunfighterism"), who attacked unions. In 1923, after the installation of the dictatorship of general Miguel Primo de Rivera, the CNT entered in the secrecy. Divided internally because of the pressure exercised by the radical wing of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), constituted in 1927 to increase the anarchist control on the union, its activity during that period was marked by the participation in several combines directed to finish with the régime.

After the Spanish transition to democracy, the CNT became legal again, but wasn't as prominent as before the war. CNT refused participating the system of elections for workers representers. This refusal caused the split of a faction that formed the Confederación General del Trabajo.

[edit] Symbols

The CNT flag has a diagonal dividing it in one red and one black halves.

[edit] Objectives

To develop the association spirit in the workers, to practice mutual support and solidarity among the workers, to represent, to defend and to promote the economic and social interests, professionals and culture of the members, as well as the necessary actions to get social and economic improvement, as much for the members as for the workers in general.

[edit] Methods

The refusal to participate in industrial committees makes them unable to call strikes legally. They sometimes take "direct action", for example, exhibiting placards in front of a firm notorious for not respecting workers' rights, or appealing to consumers to boycott their products. The CNT does not resort to violence.