I went to Barcelona in October 2003; during my visit, an international meeting of alternative trade unions organized by the anarcho-union CGT was taking place. At that time, there were said to be fifty, even close to a hundred, squatted houses throughout the city; I stayed in one of them. ---- The twenty-odd years that have passed since then, with the intensification of tourism, the increased exposure of popular city centers to rent-seeking, and the rapid "value" increase of spaces, have brought about a kind of precarious transformation of urban space, resulting in capitalist enterprises (restaurants, shops, etc.) "re-occupying" the squatted houses (squatted houses) backed by the financial (and of course, state-sponsored) power of capitalism. Similar processes have, of course, occurred in other cities (Istanbul, etc.). However, this capitalist occupation seems to have been more effective in Barcelona.
Can Batllo
Before going to Barcelona, I contacted Angel, the former international relations secretary of the CGT, whom I had met on my first visit. She has since retired but continues to work for an anarchist foundation. She invited me to Can Batllo, the former textile factory site in Barcelona that has been effectively "taken over" by residents and anarchists.
The story of Can Batllo is truly fascinating; the buildings, former textile factories, became defunct in the 1970s as a reflection of the "deindustrialization" process. In 1976, the municipality approved a development plan for the area, envisioning a social housing project and the creation of green spaces; however, the plan was never implemented for many years. In 2009, residents came together and declared they would effectively "take over" the area, demanding that the municipality fulfill its promises. Finally, in 2011, the municipality agreed to lease Can Batllo (presumably free of charge) to the residents for 50 years.
Anarchists, along with the "residents," effectively use the spaces. These spaces operate entirely on a self-governing basis, including: a large public library (it was closed, so we couldn't see inside), a nursery/kindergarten, a cafe-bar, a meeting room, a gym (with even a climbing ramp), a brewery, an anarchist foundation with a very extensive archive named after an anarcho-syndicalist (Salvador Segui) who was assassinated, an anarchist publishing house (which also published Can Dündar's book), an anarchist printing press (with both very old/antique and new printing presses), and many more. The only thing the municipality did was build a large park next to the area.
As a space heavily used by the locals and maintained entirely through self-initiative, its size and the variety of spaces were truly impressive. I also asked Angel about the situation with the squatted houses; she said there weren't as many as before, and only a few squats lasted a few months. Nevertheless, the activity in Can Batllo was somewhat reassuring.
It's important to remember that Can Batllo should absolutely not be considered a tourist area or added to any "route"; it's a genuine self-governing space, actively used by the locals, especially in the evenings, and it's not a "marginal" area!
The Present State of Anarchist Unions
Regarding the state of anarchist unions - for those who may not know - in the 1980s, after emerging from underground (in the post-Franco era), the CNT union split into two, and the wing that embraced participation in workers' representative elections (described by others as reformist) organized itself as the CGT. For many years, the CGT has appeared far more active than the CNT; Currently (according to Angel), it has 85,000 active members, 25,000 of whom are in Catalonia. Some sources suggest that membership will surpass 100,000 by 2023, making it the fourth largest trade union in Spain. In fact, the CGT's influence is far greater than its membership numbers suggest; while not as large as other unions close to socialist and communist parties, they do win the right to represent hundreds of thousands of workers in worker representative elections.
There's another, lesser-known process that resulted in the CNT effectively splitting in two in 2016. The smaller group, continuing to organize within the historical anarcho/revolutionary-syndicalist international, uses the name CNT-AIT, while the larger CNT formed a new internationalist structure under the name ICL-CIT. Although I didn't have the chance to reach the larger group, I visited the CNT-AIT office in Madrid, which is open for two hours every evening. The tragicomic part was that I couldn't have a productive meeting because I couldn't find a single person who spoke English in the office of the group that accused the other side of not giving enough importance to internationalism.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, a legal battle has also taken place between these two organizations regarding issues such as the ownership of offices and naming rights; the CNT-AIT group, which lost the case, accuses the other of reformism and centralism. From what I've observed, neither CNT is as active as the CGT; they seem to have spent recent years focusing on internal conflicts. However, the CNT (the larger one) recently made headlines with its members who were sentenced to prison for intervening in the harassment of a pregnant female employee by the employer at the La Suiza pastry shop in Gijon. Known as the "La Suiza Six," these trade unionists, mostly women, received 3.5-year sentences and went to prison as a result of a process that began in 2017 and concluded in July 2025. Although they are in a kind of open prison system with mandatory nights in jail, and there is a possibility of them being eligible for probation in the spring of 2027, they have not yet fully achieved their freedom despite the support of the left and anarchist public.
Another anarcho-syndicalist organization is the smallest (and probably more radical) union, organized under the name of the historic anarcho-syndicalist journal Solidaridad Obrera (Workers' Solidarity). I know they are organized in the Barcelona metro, but they aren't very visible.
These differences shouldn't discourage us; there are still positive developments. In April 2023, the CGT, CNT, and Solidaridad Obrera publicly announced that they had reached an agreement on joint action. Although they are organized separately, this development can be read as a good sign for the future.
These are my observations on the anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist movement in Barcelona and Madrid after more than twenty years. Although my trip to Spain didn't go as well as I expected due to an unfortunate incident in Barcelona, personally, neither I was devastated, nor did I see the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist tradition - despite all its stumbles - as having collapsed. I hope that these experiences I've shared will somehow serve as an inspiration for the region we live in.
Abbreviations:
CGT - Confederación General del Trabajo / General Confederation of Labour
CNT - Confederación Nacional del Trabajo / National Confederation of Labour
ICL-CIT - International Confederation of Labour
AIT - Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores / International Workers' Association
https://www.yeryuzupostasi.org/2026/02/16/barselonanin-can-batllo-yerleskesi-ve-ispanyol-anarko-sendikalizmin-bugunu-batur-ozdinc/
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Link: (en) Turkey, Yeryuzu Postasi: Barcelona's Can Batllo Campus and the Present State of Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalists - Batur Özdinç (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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