WORLD WORLDWIDE INTERNATIONAL SPAIN News Journal Update - (en) CNT-AIT: IWA Solidarity Days with the CNT-AIT Spain (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The CNT-AIT is an anarcho-syndicalist union, known to many people throughout the

world. Unfortunately, for several years now, it has been under attack by another
organization, the Spanish Section of the CIT, which also claims the name CNT.
---- These attacks, of a vengeful nature, threaten not only the CNT-AIT, but also
the historical traditions of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain. They are carried out
through the statist apparatus and threaten to imprison some members of the
CNT-AIT. Their goal is to receive money and property from the CNT-AIT in order to
destroy that organization. ---- The AIT considers that an attack on any of our
comrades is an attack on all of us, so we unite to demand an end to these
outrageous legal actions.

Legal actions and lack of ethics

These demands are in strict contradiction to the anarcho-syndicalist ethic in
several ways:

1. In the lawsuits, the Spanish section of the CIT claims huge sums of money for
damages because they say that there are members of the CNT-AIT who publicly
criticized them.

The freedom to criticize is a fundamental right of all members of unions and
other organizations. Ideally, this should be done in a way that avoids slander
and is based on the merits of the arguments. Anarchists do not settle such
matters in court seeking punishment and property damage, they only seek to
resolve things in other ways. This is a fundamental idea.

By comparison, we know of many defamatory statements and articles made by the
Spanish section of the CIT, its representatives or individual members, but we do
not know of any AIT member who has sued these people. (On the other hand, some of
the most vicious attacks were made anonymously, in contrast to the defendant
unions, who collectively agreed to statements and signed them.)

2. In some cases, the CIT Spanish Section lawyer built cases that could land
people in jail.

Anarchists just don't believe in state jails, especially for "crimes" like
criticizing something. These are the method of authoritarian states, not anarchists.

3. The amounts of money requested in damages would bankrupt many of these
organizations and, together, they could destroy the CNT-AIT. (That's what these
lawsuits are about.) Furthermore, in some cases, the office holders of some of
the registered entities could be personally liable for tens of thousands of euros.

This is about intimidating people into silence and fear, not promoting
anarcho-syndicalism. It is also a matter of ending those who do not go along with
the change of direction of the CIT. If successful, it would create long-term
movement damage in many areas of Spain.

4. The Spanish Section of CIT seeks to evict many unions from spaces claiming
"property rights". The reality is complicated since many of the spaces only exist
thanks to the efforts of members of the CNT-AIT to obtain them and maintain them
for many years.

Property issues are complicated, but even in divorce cases, the bourgeois courts
recognize the division of property. Some CNT-AIT unions registered properties as
the property of the federation, CNT-AIT. That was their collective organization.
No one ever registered the property of the CNT-CIT, but that organization claims
it. When the comrades have not given them what they ask for, members of the
Spanish Section of the CIT have even resorted to violence and robbery, like the
one in the Cádiz library.

Anarchists are supposed to have another idea about private property. Spaces
belong to the people who started them and worked to maintain and actually use
them. Members of the Spanish Section of CIT have made multiple decisions to
simply liquidate places and get cash for them. It is an attempt to destroy the
meeting places of the CNT-AIT, some of which even predate the existence of the
CNT, in order to profit from and undermine that organization.

The attacks against the CNT-AIT are revenge, by an organization that, on the one
hand, seems to treat the CNT-AIT as "competition" but, on the other hand, claims
that the CNT-AIT is insignificant.

The mere fact that these lawsuits exist is an abominable violation of
anarcho-syndicalist ethics. It cannot be tolerated by anyone who takes this ethic
seriously.

IWA General Secretary

More on the attacks against the CNT-AIT and the principles of anarcho-syndicalism

When the Spanish Section of CIT decided to bring multiple lawsuits against the
CNT-AIT some years ago, it was very important how they did it. The Secretary of
the CNT-CIT, Enrique Hoz, hired a lawyer who filed these suits - without the
mandate of the organization to do it.

This says everything about the Spanish Section of the CIT. In
anarcho-syndicalism, Secretaries are not mandated to make any decision they feel
like by themselves, especially one so controversial. Such things should go before
the membership as a proposal first.

Those who are in the CNT-AIT know this problem because not so long ago, many of
them were in the CNT-AIT together, before the Spanish Section of CIT stopped
being the CNT-AIT. This was a major problem then, as it is a major problem now.
If it is not seen as a problem by parts of their membership, it just shows that
they are not really interested in maintaining an anarcho-syndicalist practice.

The unilateral decisions of the executive members of the CNT-AIT (when it was
occupied by the current members of the Spanish Section of CIT), were one of the
great problems. For example, in relation to the IWA. The CNT-AIT of that time,
being a member of the IWA, was obliged to pay dues, which also was a requirement
in the very Statutes of the CNT-AIT. The Statutes set out standing instructions
of several types of payments the Treasurer should make from the dues. One of them
was a statutory instruction to pay dues to the IWA. However, the Treasurer,
having no mandate, decided some time before the Xth Congress not to pay them.
This was another example of how executives decided above the heads of the
membership what to do.

In this situation, at least the members were informed about this authoritarian
and anti-statutory executive decision and could protest it and finally force the
dues to be paid. However, later, the same thing happened. Only that time, the
membership did not find out about it right away because the Treasurer did not
make any full reports and for some time, made no reports at all. As it turned
out, these lack of reports coincided with a period of embezzlement on the part of
the General Secretary.

These type of incidents show just some of the authoritarian practices which
started to take hold in the old CNT-AIT, before it re-established itself some
years ago. It was a necessary step to avoid a complete downward spiral and to
maintain a functioning anarcho-syndicalist organization in Spain.

This is not the first time this has happened with that organization. As both a
mass organization and an organization with some resources, the CNT-AIT has at
various times in history attracted unscrupulous groups of people who sought to
take it in another direction. From the Treintistas of old to those who during
Francoism sought to cooperate with very undesirable forces, to those who went
more mainstream in the CGT. Each time there were militants of the CNT-AIT who
struggled to keep the CNT-AIT on track and true to the principles it was fighting
for.

Inside the CNT-AIT of the early 21st Century, various moves went on to take
control of the organization. Several unions, inclined towards changing the
orientation and practice both the CNT-AIT and the IWA into more vertical ones
started acting in ways with defied several Confederal agreements. Such as unions
in Andalucia. It was there that the CNT-AIT had to carry out investigations into
claims that some unions were buying more member stamps than it had members in
order to inflate their votes and that some members were also in parallel unions
and were diverting funds into these unions. These claims were proven, however, it
turned out that those who took action in these matters to talk about these
matters, investigate them and stop these practices were then scapegoated and
expelled from the CNT-AIT. A series of expulsions occurred, starting in this
region and later spreading and unions showed themselves in solidarity with those
expelled, often anti-statutorially.

And so it happened that a series of purges occurred and the Secretariat of the
CNT-AIT, being on the side of the authoritarian faction, started to try to evict
people from their premises. It must be stated that there are many different
situations about CNT-AIT premises in Spain; some registered these spaces to their
local entities, not to the Central Organization, some to the Central
Organization. Some did not exist in the historic past and some existed even
decades before the CNT was founded. The fact is that all of these premises were
maintained and used by the people in them, collectives who put time, money and
energy into this.

The first acts of violence committed by members of the Secretariat were in Cadiz
in 2012.  It consisted of a couple of raids on the CNT-AIT office in Cadiz.  The
union in Cadiz was instrumental in exposing the fraud committed in Andalucia, for
example, how they were buying votes so those who were implicated in this fraud
decided they needed to get rid of them. Despite this, the CNT-AIT in Cadiz
continued to operate, having a labor conflict shortly after. This activity was
well-known in Cadiz and CNT-AIT Cadiz acted to continue anarcho-syndicalist
activity while the executives of the old CNT-AIT tried to wipe it off the map.
The Secretary of the Confederal Committee wrote that it would take possession of
this office, that it had changed the locks and, if anybody had any personal
belongings inside it, they should provide their name and their details.

After this attempt to evict CNT-AIT Cadiz, which proved unsuccessful, members of
the Regional Committee of Andalucia appeared at one comrades workplace and
threatened him with all sorts of things. Later, there was a physical attack which
was fought off by some people from the neighbour who saw what was happening.
Finally, the place was robbed. All the furniture from inside, flags, posters and
books were taken. It should be pointed out that all of these things were gathered
by the local membership who had taken years of collective effort to build up the
space and the library. Even the door was destroyed, just to spite those in Cadiz
who acted against corruption in their regional.

While there were other incidents and threats of incidents, for example, against
the union of Alcoy, perhaps the best known were the attempted raid of the CNT-AIT
Local Federation of Madrid's offices a few years ago. This federation, one of the
largest in the CNT-AIT, had been problematic for the authoritarian faction for
years and it had tried numerous times to expel some of its unions and even the
whole federation.

Several failed attempts to expel the Federation hinged on false accusations that
somebody shouted to another person during a demonstration about being a
reformist. When the union did not expel the person falsely accused, the
reformists tried to expel the whole union and when the Federation refused to
expel the union, they tried to expel the whole Federation (more than 500 people).

That was how the purges looked. It should be noted that the CNT Statutes have
provisions that say that members who are expelled cannot come back in another
union and members of expelled union require a special decision during the Plenary
which expels them. However, a number of expelled people were allowed back without
such decisions, in contradiction to the Statutes.*

(* One of these people was Miguel Perez, first International Secretary of CIT.)

Finally, there was another attempt to expel this federation from the entity now
calling itself CNT-CIT. It must be noted that this took place one week before a
national meeting to ratify joining CNT-CIT. This fact represented the reality of
CNT-CIT at that point. Executives attended meetings, took actions and decisions
and then later asked the membership to ratify what they'd done. This was a big
change from first taking a decision, then mandating an elected representative to
do it. However, with a few like-minded people controlling a large number of votes
of passive members who had joined in the service union model, they could expect
decisions to be rubber-stamped.

Except for with Federations such as Madrid, the majority of whose unions still
had an active base membership committed to anarcho-syndicalist practices. The
Regional Plenary which took place the week before this ratification was to take
place, was a good opportunity to try to get rid of the dissenters, but before the
vote enough was debated, a group of people led by the Regional Secretary, went to
carry out the eviction at the Federation's premises, where two women were alone.
Informing comrades what was happening (while this situation was supposed to be
discussed), people returned to defend themselves against this executive eviction.

Such were the practices of the current leadership of the Spanish section of CIT
towards people who are members of the CNT-AIT.

Currently, the lawyer of the Spanish Section of CIT makes claims and charges that
can land some people in jail and tries to get around a million euros in "damages"
from CNT-AIT. Some people in CNT-AIT, who are legally registered officers face
personal liability of tens of thousands of euros if the union doesn't have that
money.

So much for promoting anarcho-syndicalism in Spain.

Other organizations in the world have also had their ideological turns splits and
so forth. In France, there are 3 CNTs - each one with their own affiliation or
ending initials and nobody confuses CNT-AIT with CNT-SO and so forth. There is no
need for courts and although some may be critical of the others, there are no
claims that the others are "damaging" them and should pay them a million euros.

However, that's just the way that some people are. Fits in more with the ideals
of petty greed than with anarcho-syndicalism.
On the occasion of the Days of Solidarity with the CNT-AIT, we proclaim that we
will not forget this situation and what caused it.

Long live the CNT-AIT and anarcho-syndicalism!

Laure Akai
Secretary General, IWA
Member of ZSP Warsaw Union

https://vivacntait.iwa-ait.org/iwa-jornadas-de-solidaridad-con-la-cnt-ait-espana/
https://vivacntait.iwa-ait.org/more-on-the-attacks-against-the-cnt-ait-and-the-principles-of-anarcho-syndicalism/
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