Workers' Commissions
Encyclopedia
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
in Spain. It has more than one million members and is the most successful union in labor elections, competing with the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores
Unión General de Trabajadores
The Unión General de Trabajadores is a major Spanish trade union, historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party .-History:...
(UGT) (historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...
[PSOE]), with the syndicalist
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) usually a distant third.
The CCOO were organized in the 1960s by the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and workers' Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
groups to fight against the dictatorship of Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
, and for labor rights
Labor rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are a group of legal rights and claimed human rights having to do with labor relations between workers and their employers, usually obtained under labor and employment law. In general, these rights' debates have to do with negotiating workers' pay, benefits, and safe...
(in opposition to the non-representative "vertical unions" in the Spanish Trade Union Organisation
Spanish Trade Union Organisation
The Spanish Trade Union Organisation , commonly known as Vertical Syndicate , was the only legal trade union organisation in Francoist Spain , and a main component of the Movimiento Nacional Francoist apparatus...
). The various organizations formed a single entity after a 1976 Congress in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
.
Along with other unions like the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) and the UGT, it called a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
in 1976, and carried out protests against the conditions in the country. Marcelino Camacho
Marcelino Camacho
Marcelino Camacho Abad , was a Spanish trade unionist and politician. He was a founding member of Comisiones Obreras and its first Secretary-General, holding this position between 1976 and 1987, and a communist deputy for Madrid Province between 1977 and 1981.Born the son of a unionized signalman...
, a major figure of Spanish trade unionism and a PCE member, was CCOO's General Secretary
General Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
from its foundation to 1985 - he was elected to the Congress of Deputies in the 1977 election
Spanish general election, 1977
The Spanish general election of 1977 took place on 15 June 1977. It was the first election since the death of Francisco Franco.Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The elections were held using closed list proportional representation in 52 electoral districts...
.
General Secretary
Between 1985 and 1997, the union's General Secretary was Antonio Gutiérrez; he was followed by José María Fidalgo(1997–2009), often criticized by the left wing of the union. The CCOO and the UGT, summoned three general strikes (1988, 1992 and 1994) against the economic policy of the Felipe GonzálezFelipe González
Felipe González Márquez is a Spanish socialist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996.-Early life:Felipe was...
government, and one on June 20, 2002, against the government of José María Aznar
José María Aznar
José María Alfredo Aznar López served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...
and its plan to change the unemployment insurance system.
The current General Secretary is Ignacio Fernandez Toxo. On September 29, 2010, the CCOO called a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
to protest the José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...
government's plans to raise the retirement age and cut spending.