The Conflict of the Selfactinas refers to luddist actions that occurred in Barcelona during the month of July 1854 against the mechanisation of spinning with the self-acting or fully automatic mule held responsible for rising unemployment. The Conflict represents the first attempt in Spain to regulate child labor and to improve the conditions of workers [1] and led directly to the first general strike in Spain.
The first violent responses to the introduction of machinery in Spain were in textile production and occurred in Alcoy, Valencia in 1821 (against the automation of wool carding and spinning), in Camprodón, Catalonia in 1823, in Barcelona in 1835 and in Igualada, Catalonia in 1847.
Since 1840, workers had begun organising into mutual associations and used strike action as their main weapon but with limited success due partly to the widespread availability of arms. [2] [3]
Completely automatic (self-acting) spinning machines had been first introduced into Catalonia around 1844 [4] and by 1849 accounted for 91,468 spindles, [5] and in 1854 more than 200,000. [6]
On March 31 and April 1, 1854, the workers of numerous factories in Barcelona went out on strike demanding the abolition of the so-called self-acting machines, which was causing unemployment. [7]
Then, on June 30, 1854, an armed uprising near Madrid known as the Vicalvarada against the corrupt and unrepresentative government, stimulated a similar revolt in Barcelona in support on July 14 but in which the workers also played a prominent role. They reinitiated their strike, demanding not just the banning of machines but adding demands for political change consistent with the armed uprising. [7]
The next day, several factories that used the new cotton-spinning machines were attacked and burnt. On the 16th at noon the factories in Mataró closed and the workers came out also demanding the removal of the selfactinas, bringing the total to some 60 factories paralysed by strikes, probably the total number that were using automatic machines. [8] The Captain General, de la Rocha, sent forces to protect the factories and made a public announcement that any attacks on property or that jeopardised security would be punished by firing squad. The next day he executed three people accused of setting factories on fire. [7]
Representatives of the spinners met with the Captain General who agreed to issue an edict on July 25 to have selfactinas replaced by older, less efficient machines. However, the employers refused to comply and sought the support of the newly appointed Civil Governor, Madoz and so the strike continued.
On August 8, a new Captain General, Domingo Dulce y Garay, met with the leaders of the workers who presented a workers' manifesto signed by nineteen associations, demanding pardon for the workers prosecuted and convicted and ending the strike. Within a week, Madoz, reached a compromise between the employers and the spinners on August 15 that although it didn't result in banning machines, increased wages. [7]
Tension remained as the workers waged an almost daily struggle for increased wages and reduced hours. There was an attempt to federate the different associations at a meeting in the Town Hall on October 8 claiming to speak for 80% of workers in the city, probably between 40,000 and 80,000 workers and demanding a minimum salary.
Further negotiations in November finally ratified the agreement with Madoz: spinners received half an hour more time on their midday meal break, which meant reducing weekly hours from 72 to 69. [9]
The change in regime in Madrid emboldened the manufacturers and the tension increased during the first months of 1855, especially after the earlier edict was formally annulled in the Madrid parliament. Strikes and “lock-outs” were frequent [9] and following the dubious trial and execution of labour leader Josep Barceló Cassadó, led to the 1855 Catalan general strike which in turn led to an enquiry in the Cortes (parliament) in Madrid in November 1855.
The social and political scope of the Conflict was of considerable importance and demonstrated the desire of the workers to take their demands to the Cortes. As a consequence, the Conflict represents the first attempt in Spain to regulate child labor in factories and to improve the working and social conditions of workers. [1]
Salvador Seguí Rubinat, known as El noi del sucre for his habit of eating the sugar cubes served him with his coffee, was a Catalan anarcho-syndicalist in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions.
Enric Prat de la Riba i Sarrà was a Catalan politician, lawyer and writer. He was a member of the Centre Escolar Catalanista, where one of the earliest definitions of Catalan nationalism was formulated. He became the first President of the Commonwealth of Catalonia on 6 April 1914 and retained this office until his death. He wrote the book and political manifesto La nacionalitat catalana in which greater autonomy to Catalonia was advocated. He died in 1917 and is interred in the Montjuïc Cemetery in Barcelona.
Senterada is a village in the province of Lleida and autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The municipality includes a small exclave to the north.
Josep Bonaplata i Corriol was a Catalan industrial entrepreneur known for introducing the steam engine into Catalonia and Spain. His parents, Ramon Bonaplata and Teresa Corriol, were textile manufacturers, principally of chintz, and he had three brothers, Salvador, Ramon and Narcís.
La España Industrial,, was a cotton textile company founded 1847, and which built its primary factory in the village of Santa María de Sans. It was not only the first joint-stock company created in Spain for cotton manufacturing, but it was also the first company to undertake all aspects under one roof. It was for many years, the largest and most innovative cotton manufacturer in Spain. It was formed in 1847, grew to 2,500 employees in late 19th century, consolidated factories in the 1970s and finally closed its doors for good in 1981.
The Royal Barcelona Trading Company to the Indies also known as the Barcelona Company was a trading company in the 18th century chartered by the Spanish crown, operating from 1755 to 1785, and which had a monopoly on trade to the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Margarita. The company provided a legal framework and a focus for capital which enabled Catalan merchants to break free from the restrictions of the Cadiz monopoly on trade with the Indies, provided skills and contacts that enabled the development of free trade between Catalonia and the Americas to flourish after the company's demise, and contributed to the development of the textile industry which later became the basis of industrialisation in Catalonia.
The Catalan Republic was a state proclaimed in 1931 by Francesc Macià as the "Catalan Republic within the Iberian Federation", in the context of the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. It was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, and superseded three days later, on 17 April, by the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan institution of self-government within the Spanish Republic.
In 1855, Catalan workers went on strike following the dubious trial and execution of labor leader Josep Barceló Cassadó. It was the first general strike in Spanish history. A factory director was killed in Sants during the strike. As labor unions expanded in the next century, strikes became commonplace in Barcelona.
The Anarchist Organization of the Spanish Region was an anarchist organization founded in 1888 during the last congress of the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region (FTRE), held in Valencia. It had an ephemeral life as it disappeared the following year.
The Union and Solidarity Pact was a Spanish labor organization founded in 1888, which succeeded the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region. It was valid until 1896.
The 1870 Barcelona Workers' Congress was a congress that brought together, from 18 to 26 June 1870, 89 delegates from workers' societies in Barcelona and in which the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) was founded. It is considered the founding act of anarchism in Spain.
The Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region was a Spanish anarchist organization founded in the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1881 by the initiative of a group of Catalan anarcho-syndicalists headed Josep Llunas i Pujals, Rafael Farga Pellicer and Antoni Pellicer, after the dissolution of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association founded in the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1870. It only had seven years of life since it was dissolved in 1888. Its failure, in which the episode of La Mano Negra was key, opened a new stage in the history of anarchism in Spain dominated by propaganda of the deed.
The 1881 Barcelona Workers' Congress was a congress of the workers' societies of Spain held in Barcelona in September 1881, during the reign of Alfonso XII, from which the new Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region emerged, with an anarcho-collectivist tendency, which replaced the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) founded eleven years earlier in a labor congress also held in Barcelona.
The Seville Congress was the Second Congress of the newly created Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region held in Seville in September 1882.
The origins of the labor movement in Spain are located in Catalonia in the 1830s and 1840s, since it was the only place in Spain where there was a modern industry: the textile industry. There the first conflicts between workers and employers took place and there the first trade union — called "resistance societies" at the time — in the history of Spain, the Barcelona Weavers Association, was founded in 1840. The first general strike took place during the progressive biennium - a period of extension of the movement to other areas of Spain. By 1865, the first Workers' Congress was held in Barcelona. After the triumph of the Glorious Revolution, the right to freedom of association was recognized for the first time, which put an end, at least momentarily, to the persecutions and prohibitions that the incipient labor movement had suffered during the previous forty years.
The 1865 Barcelona Workers Congress was held in December —in September, according to Manuel Tuñón de Lara - from 1865 in Barcelona (Spain) and brought together 22 Catalan workers' societies, taking advantage of a moment tolerance during the final crisis of the reign of Elizabeth II (1863-1868). It was the first workers' congress to be held in Spain, although it was limited to Catalonia.
The Madrid Congress was the Fourth Congress of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) that was held in Madrid in June 1874.
The cotton industry was the first and leading industry of Catalan industrialisation which led, by the mid-19th century, to Catalonia becoming the main industrial region of Spain. It is the one Mediterranean exception to the tendency for early industrialisation to be concentrated in northern Europe. The Catalan cotton industry, in common with many European countries and the United States, was the first large-scale application of modern technology and the factory system.
The Bonaplata Factory (1832-1838) was the first factory in Spain to successfully use steam engines, the first foundry to manufacture and repair cast-iron machinery for sale to the textile industry and, significantly, gained government concessions that definitively demonstrated the government's commitment to domestic manufacturing.
