The 28th IWA Congress took place from December 9-11 in Alcoy Spain. A group of
delegates and observers from the ZSP took part in the work of the Congress, Belowis one account of this event, which commemorates 100 years of the InternationalWorkers' Association. ---- The IWA Congresses occur every three years: the lastone took place in 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. There we decided that theCentennary Congress should be held in Spain, hosted by our Section, the CNT-AIT.The comrades in Spain chose the city Alcoy to host the celebration. This choicewas significant, as we will explain later and proved to be an excellent place tohold our Congress.Delegations arrived from most of the IWA Sections (although a few delegates werenot allowed to travel to the Schengen area). We were met with the greatestcomaraderie and hospitality by our hosts in Spain who had also prepared a numberof events to accompany the Congress.Prior to the Congress there were concerts, book presentations and a tour withhistorical information about the Petroleum Revolution. For those who may not knowabout this, it was a very significant event in workers' history in 1873 whenworkers from the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen'sAssociation led a revolt and, for a time, took over the town before beingbrutally repressed. Such events were part of the rich legacy of the libertarianworkers' movement in Spain which eventually led to the foundation of the CNT in 1910.As usual, the Congress agenda was quite extensive and contained many pointsrelating to issues such as improving the internal functioning of theInternational, welcoming new members into the Federation, creating and orpresenting the work of working groups and practical projects, discussion,rotation of the functions and more.One of the first points of the Agenda related to affiliation so we are pleased toannounce that our comrades from Ireland,from"Organize" have joined as Friends ofthe IWA. We look forward to fruitful cooperation!As far as the internal matters, some are very technical and not reallyinteresting for outside readers. However, we can note a few interesting points.The participation of Sections and Friends of the IWA from outside Europe isparticularly worth mentioning. For the last few years, especially after internalshifts in the IWA a few years back, we have been able to increase membership inAsia and South America and make many valuable new contacts in these regions.Keeping this is mind, there was overwhelming support for holding our nextCongress in Indonesia where hopefully more people from this region can attend.This is a very welcome change in the IWA and we look forward to our expansion inthese directions. It was particularly valuable to hear their perspectives duringthe Congress.One of the more interesting discussions revolved around the work of the workinggroup on Climate Change and discussion of practical work in this area. As itturned out, our comrades from Pakistan, Indonesia and Colombia really had a lotto say about this. We were all particularly fascinated with the description ofWSF's work after massive floods in Pakistan and how workers turned toself-organization in the face of the crisis and lack of an adequate response (oreven any response at all) from the government. We also learned about how comradesfrom PPAS made a project to have a self-sustainable, ecological farm. Thesestories were very inspiring for all that heard them!Another important working group was dedicated to helping newer and smallerorganizations with conducting their first workplace conflicts with a lot ofadvice from some unions that have experience with this. Various projects to helpour organizations with workplace organizer training and increasing theirworkplace activity have been approved by our last two Congresses and finally theworking group produced something like a booklet with advice. This work was alsopresented to the Congress.Speaking of working groups, a new one was formed in order to revive the IWAExternal Bulletin which, unfortunately, has not been published in some time. Ithad previously been edited by the IWA Secretariat which as we see, has too manytasks. The working group thus will decentralize some of the work and hopefullyimprove international cooperation.The work of the Congress itself was relatively smooth and managed to come toagreements on all the agenda points. Despite the large number of delegatespresent and the inevitable differences of opinion on some points, there was alsoa high level of agreement on some other important matters.We also had an interesting experience with one technological solution we areemploying at the conference as it was video streamed for both the large number ofobservers present and for comrade delegates who were not able to attend due totravel restrictions, health issues or other reasons. At least they were able toattend virtually.However, those who attended virtually were not able to see the hundreds of books,magazines and other items displayed at the Congress. It was a good chance to seepublications from around the world. Also they missed the performances presentedin the evening such as the one by the infamous "Puppeteers from Below" or therousing play performed by "We without a Name".One other thing worth mentioning is our upcoming campaign in defense of thecomrades from the CNT-AIT. The Congress decided that an international campaign isin order due to the outrageous lawsuits which the people from the union thatsplit from the CNT-AIT (now self-denominated as CNT-CIT or ICL in English)brought against and comrades and which has already lasted several years. (Wefurther refer to them as the Spanish Section of CIT (ICL) as certainly we cannotsee such people as continuing the legacy of a libertarian organization.)Those who are in the Spanish Section of CIT (ICL) had tried unsuccessfully totake control of the International Workers' Association, partially by conductingpurges inside the former CNT. Having been unsuccessul, they formed a newinternational organization and the CNT-AIT remained in the IWA. Even prior tothese events, those in the Spanish Section of CIT (ICL) had tried to take overthe property and name of the CNT-AIT unions, often acting as liquidators andevictors of unions. Those which they did not manage to liquidate by violence weresubjected to many lawsuits amounting to over 1 million euros and the threatenedliquidation of many premises. The IWA stands firmly in its opposition to thesescandalous attempts to weaken the CNT-AIT and wipe out the anarcho-syndicalistlegacy of this organization in many cities throughout Spain. In addition, anumber of comrades could face prison sentences due to these legal actions, someof which specifically call for incarceration.The Sections of the IWA will be campaigning internationally against both theSpanish Section of the CIT (ICL) and its cohorts who have decided to turn a blindeye to these events while still pretending to adhere to libertarian principles.A great example of the gross immorality of this situation is exactly thesituation of the union in Alcoy. When the new leaders of the Spanish Section ofCIT (ICL) understood that in this region the unions would like to act in aConfederation of comradely unions and not be subjugated to more verticalstructures from much larger urban areas, that these unions are predisposed to thePrinciples of the International Workers' Association and that it would be moreprofitable for them to liquidate these functioning unions and sell theirpremises, purges took place in the region with the aim of concentrating bothvoting power and capital in Valencia, a service-oriented union. The union ofAlcoy at that time had about 40 members; some had been active for 50 years ormore, even through the whole time of Francoism, for which some went to prison.The former premises of the Alcoy union was actually the Headquarters of theSpanish Section of the First International. This property predated the IWA byalmost half a century. When the building was in such a bad state that it had tobe torn down, local comrades made sure that the CNT-AIT could secure a new place.The old building predated the patrimony of the CNT and the new one only becamepart of the CNT "property" because the people who had spent most of their livesactive in the organization considered it to be their collective project. Theynever imagined that people in the Confederation would seek to kick them out andsell off their property to get more power and money. However, this is what theytried to do. When the comrades from Alcoy refused to abandon the place that theythemselves had organized and managed for years, they were threatened withphysical violence and eviction by leaders of the Spanish Section of CIT (ICL).When that also didn't work, they were hit with lawsuits that certainly nobody canafford.In short, many comrades in Spain have survived Francoism and various attempts bythe state to weaken anarcho-syndicalism in Spain and have passionately kept theseideas alive only to find that their work is now threatened by people workinghand-in-hand with the repressive state apparatus and pretending to be acting as acontinuation of the libertarian legacy. We wonder how many people actuallybeleive that liquidation of premises around Spain, the transfer of capitalthrough huge financial penalties and throwing a few dedicated comrades in jail issomething which is in line with any libertarian principles.So, the choice of Alcoy was symbolic - not only because of the role that cityplayed in history and the development of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain but to showthat we support all those who have dedicated their lives to maintaining thesetraditions, even in the smaller urban and rural centers in Spain and who arethreatened by these awful attempts to eradicate them and erase the fruits of alltheir efforts.In addition to a resolute agreement to conduct this campaign in defense of theCNT-AIT, we also decided to take more resolute action against the FAL (TheAnselmo Lorenzo Foundation). This organization, which legally was part of theCNT-AIT, also received more archives from the International Workers' Associationa decade ago and, since that time, they have refused access to it to people fromthe IWA and they repeatedly have ignored calls to return in. Again, this issimply an attack on our Federation for the "crime" of not letting the SpanishSection of CIT(ICL) and it's cohorts take control of the IWA. This is the secondattack on the IWA archives - the first having been committed by the government ofNazi Germany.Expect to see more information about these situations in the New Year.When the New Year comes we will also transfer the seat of the IWA and, for thefirst time ever, the responsibilities will be shared across continents by thecomrades of the ZSP and the ASF in Australia. Hopefully this will engage morepeople over a larger territorial space in the work of the functioning of the IWAand preparation for such events as the next Plenary and Congress.We think that despite the very serious situation that our comrades in Spain findthemselves in, the Congress was generally positive and we hope that the delegateshave returned home with positive impressions. We are looking forward to hearingmore good news and seeing the new comrades (and old) develop.https://zsp.net.pl/28th-congress-international-workers-association_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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