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Benjamin Rubio (Bustarga, Leon, 1925 - August 25, 2007) was an active trade unionist in the Laciana area.
Benjamin Rubio was born in Bustarga, in Ancares (Leon) on October 12, 1925. During the Spanish Civil War he saw the repression of the Nationalists and it scarred his life forever. At the age of 16 he began working in the mining industry, with an anarcho-syndicalist influence, and served as liaison between the army of the "Maquis" and the Léon-Galicia Guerrilla Group, led by César Ríos, between 1942 and 1949. During these years, he suffered persecution and finally was imprisoned.
After leaving prison, he moved to the Leonesa Region of Laciana, to return to work in the mines. Leaving behind its anarcho-syndicalist influences, the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) contacted him for the reorganization of its structure in the Spanish interior. Thus, he became the underground communist leader for León and Galicia. His participation in the Mining Strike of 1962 (called "The Huelgona"), sets an important historic precedent, to settle one of the first permanent Workers' Commissions. Since the late 1950s, the trade-union policy of the PCE has marked the over-involvement of the Vertical unions. Various Asturian miners' strikes (1958, 1959, ...), had formed the Workers Commission, which dissolved by the end of the conflict. The difference from the Laciana case is that, during that strike, the workers managed to introduce 12 representatives into the Company Board controlled by the Ponferrada Mining, Iron and Steel Company and close to Francoist Spain. One of those representatives was Benjamin Rubio, settling a Permanent Work Commission, and whose extension will be the birth of the Workers Commission Union (CCOO), of which he became an important leader.
In the early years of the 1970s, as part of the Anthracite Strike, and with CCOO outlawed and persecuted, Benjamin Rubio was called on to travel to the UK to seek support for the Workers' Commissions from the European trade unions, support which he obtained. For several years he continued his work as leader of the Spanish Communist Party and the Workers' Commissions, participating in the Spanish Transition. Finally, he left the front line of politics, beginning a collaboration with the War and Exile Association (AGE) in the struggle for the recovery of historical memory and recognition of the rebels as soldiers and not as bandits. Between these activities, in 2000 he collaborated with the Caravan of Memory, which brought together several guerrillas from Galicia and Leon in Villablino, initiating a struggle for the memoirs.
Some months before dying, he published his book "Memoirs of the Anti-Franco Struggle", where important biographical and historical aspects are collected, such as the lyrics of Guerrilla anthems and other information. He also participated in the Documentary "La Guerrilla de la Memoria" (The Guerrilla of Memory).
He died on August 25, 2007.
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Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labour movement that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II.
Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.
The Communist Party of Spain is a communist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is currently part of Sumar. Two of its politicians are Spanish government ministers: Yolanda Díaz and Sira Rego.
The Popular Front was an electoral alliance and pact formed in January 1936 to contest that year's general election by various left-wing political organizations during the Second Spanish Republic. The alliance was led by Manuel Azaña. In Catalonia and the modern-day Valencian Community, the coalition was known as the Front of the Lefts.
The Workers' Commissions since the 1970s has become the largest trade union in Spain. It has more than one million members, and is the most successful union in labor elections, competing with the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), which is historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and with the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), which is usually a distant third.
The International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA–AIT) is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions and initiatives.
The General Confederation of Labour is a Spanish trade union federation. Formed as a faction of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) during the Spanish transition to democracy, its support for participation in union elections led it to split from the organisation, which prohibited participation. After losing a lengthy legal battle for the name, the pro-electoral faction renamed itself to the CGT and reorganised itself as an independent trade union center.
The Unión General de Trabajadores is a major Spanish trade union, historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).
The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia was a communist political party active in Catalonia between 1936 and 1997. It was the Catalan branch of the Communist Party of Spain and the only party not from a sovereign state to be a full member of the Third International.
The Maquis were Spanish guerrillas who waged an irregular warfare against the Francoist dictatorship within Spain following the Republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War until the early 1960s, carrying out sabotage, robberies and assassinations of alleged Francoists as well as contributing to the fight against Nazi Germany and the Vichy regime in France during World War II. They also took part in occupations of the Spanish embassy in France.
José Bullejos y Sánchez was a Spanish communist politician. He served as the second General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain from 1925 to 1932.
Marcelino Camacho Abad was a Spanish trade unionist and politician. He was a founding member of Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and its first Secretary-General, holding this position between 1976 and 1987, and a communist deputy for Madrid Province between 1977 and 1981.
Ignacio Fernández Toxo ['toʃo] is a Spanish Trade Unionist that held the position of General Secretary of the Spanish union Workers' Commissions (CCOO) from 2008 to 2017 and President of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) from 2011 to 2015.
Benoît Frachon, a French metalworker and trade union leader, was one of the leaders of the French Communist Party and of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45). He was Secretary-General of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) from 1945 to 1967.
Leandro Carro Hernáez was a Spanish communist leader who was active in the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the Communist Party of the Basque Country after its creation in 1935. He was later Minister of Public Works in the Basque government in exile in 1946–1948.
Women in Partido Comunista de España in Francoist Spain faced many challenges. Partido Comunista de España (PCE) had been made illegal by the new regime, which banned all political parties and trade unions. In the final days of the Civil War and during the first days of Francoist Spain, women were imprisoned just for being related to "reds". They were also investigated, harassed, imprisoned and executed for expressing sympathy for Republicans or belonging to any leftist organization. Many women in PCE were caught up in this. PCE women's organization Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas survived the war, and shifted their priorities to assisting political prisoners in Francost jails.
Anarchism in Peru emerged from the Peruvian trade union movement during the late 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century.
Treintism was a political movement within libertarian socialism in the Second Spanish Republic. Initially a faction within the National Confederation of Labor (CNT), the Treintists were, after the publication of the Manifesto of the Thirty in September 1931, expelled from the CNT over the course of the years 1931 and 1932 and formed the Syndicalist Party in 1932. The Treintists and the labor unions associated with them, the Opposition Syndicates, rejoined the CNT in 1936. The movement fell into political irrelevance with the victory of the Nationalist forces of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
The labor movement in Spain began in Catalonia in the 1830s and 1840s, although it was during the Democratic Sexenio when it was really born with the founding of the Spanish Regional Federation of the First International (FRE-AIT) at the Workers' Congress of Barcelona in 1870. During the Restoration, the two major Spanish trade union organizations were founded, the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores and the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, with the latter predominating until the Second Spanish Republic. CNT and UGT were the protagonists of the social revolution that took place in the Republican zone during the first months of the Spanish Civil War. During Franco's dictatorship, the two historical centers were harshly repressed until they practically disappeared. In the final stage of Franco's regime, a new organization called Workers' Commissions emerged, which together with the reconstituted UGT, will be the two majority unions from the beginning of the new democratic period until the present day.
The history of anarcho-syndicalism dates back to the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association. Revolutionary syndicalism as a tendency was constituted in the 1890s by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT), which became a model union for other syndicalist organisations to base themselves on. Anarchists were involved in the syndicalist movement from the outset and a specific anarchist tendency developed within the movement over the subsequent decades.
