page_title: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
section_title: During the "transition"
hierarchical_section_title: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo / History / During the "transition"
caption_attribution_description: CNT-AIT office in Plaça del Duc de Medinaceli, 6, Barcelona. Photo: Soman
context_page_description: The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions, which was long affiliated with the International Workers' Association. When working with the latter group it was also known as CNT-AIT. Historically, the CNT has also been affiliated with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica; thus, it has also been referred to as the CNT-FAI. Throughout its history, it has played a major role in the Spanish labor movement.
  Founded in 1910 in Barcelona from groups brought together by the trade union Solidaridad Obrera, it significantly expanded the role of anarchism in Spain, which can be traced to the creation of the Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española, the successor organization to the Spanish chapter of the IWA.
  Despite several decades when the organization was illegal in Spain, today the CNT continues to participate in the Spanish worker's movement, focusing its efforts on the principles of workers' self-management, federalism, and mutual aid.
context_section_description: After Franco's death in November 1975 and the beginning of Spain's transition to democracy, the CNT was the only social movement to refuse to sign the 1977 Moncloa Pact, an agreement amongst politicians, political parties, and trade unions to plan how to operate the economy during the transition. In 1979, the CNT held its first congress since 1936 as well as several mass meetings, the most remarkable one in Montjuïc. Views put forward in this congress would set the pattern for the CNT's line of action for the following decades: no participation in union elections, no acceptance of state subsidies, no acknowledgment of works councils, and support of union sections.
  In this first congress, held in Madrid, a minority sector in favor of union elections split from the CNT, initially calling themselves CNT Valencia Congress (referring to the alternative congress held in this city), and later Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) after an April 1989 court decision determined that they could not use the CNT initials. In 1990, a group of CGT members left this union because they rejected the CGT's policy of accepting government subsidies, founding Solidaridad Obrera.
  One year before, the 1978 Scala Case affected the CNT. An explosion killed three people in a Barcelona night club. The authorities alleged that striking workers "blew themselves up", and arrested surviving strikers, implicating them in the crime. CNT members declared that the prosecution sought to criminalize their organization:
  It was evident that the police weren't looking for anything nor anyone– they already had the culprits– it was just about intimidating the cenetistsa and scaring away from the organization thousands of affiliate workers that, although they identified with the syndical line of the anarcho-syndicalists, they weren't determined to go a long way in their support, let alone to defy such police repression. Things weren't a joke, the news of new arrests created an insecurity atmosphere among great part of the members. On the other hand, the certainty of the implication of the CNT in the attack kept consolidating in the public opinion, which caused serious deterioration in the organization's image, and thus the anarchists'. If we add news of aggressions and assaults by fascist groups, which considerably increased those days, we can more or less picture the situation. Being an anarchist those days turned very unpleasant. The media made it unpopular; the police and ultra-rightwing groups made it dangerous.
  — Revista Polémica, The Scala case. A trial against anarcho-syndicalism.
  After its legalization, the CNT began efforts to recover the expropriations of 1939. The basis for such recovery would be established by Law 4/1986, which required the return of the seized properties, and the unions' right to use or yield the real estate. Since then the CNT has been claiming the return of these properties from the State.
  In 1996, the Economic and Social Council facilities in Madrid were squatted by 105 CNT militants. This body is in charge of the repatriation of the accumulated union wealth. In 2004 an agreement was reached between the CNT and the District Attorney's Office, through which all charges were dropped against the hundred prosecuted for this occupation.
caption: The Barcelona offices of the CNT.
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