I am an electrician, I work for a non-union company the vast majority of us workers are against unionization, mostly due to the bosses using anti-union propaganda at any mention of the union. I have been vocally obstinate to this rhetoric, I am beginning to see that I may be able to make progress at dispelling this rhetoric by my actions and small subtle remarks at why unionization only stands for our benefit.

I am currently working towards making my crew as horizontally lead as I currently know how. I am seeing great success. I'm just looking for advice and ideas on how others may have been able to promote anarchosyndaclist methods to their individual trades and lives.

I have been taking notes on why people seem so against unionization. The most of the guys it comes down to licensing, in my county we do not have to have apprenticeship nor journeyman licenses. That is seemingly to be the greatest concern. In my opinion a lot of our guys are scabs, and take very little pride in their work, let alone proper care. With obstacles like these what are the steps I can take towards promoting unionization?

I take extreme care for my work and overall finished product, and I've seen that already bleeding into the work that the guys I end up overseeing. The guys that put out shoddy work on other jobs don't seem to have that same attitude with me. I attribute this to my horizontal approach rather than top down. I see an overall improvement on overall attitude as well. I also see more openness towards discussing unionization when my guys and I are alone away from the other forman and higher ups. Is there more that I can do?

It's so big that some may not want to believe it. Yet, it reflects well the times of triumphant, ruthless capitalism we live in today: a registered trademark will ban the CNT-AIT from using the CNT acronym and a number of symbols, including the red and black diagonal flag. These symbols will now be the exclusive property of CNT-CIT (or CNT®).

An initial set of seventeen unions (sixteen from CNT-AIT and the independent CNT union of Vigo) were ordered to pay €2,000 each in moral damages to CNT®CIT, whose claims were deemed legitimate by the “Audiencia Nacional” court, even though the amount initially demanded by CNT®CIT (€50,000 per union) was reduced by the "justice" system.

The day before the trial, seventeen other entities (unions and local federations of CNT-AIT) were similarly accused by CNT®CIT and face the same penalties. This second wave of trials is set for October 29. Thirty-four collectives already... for an organization supposedly non-existent! And there may be a third wave, as some entities have escaped the inquisition.

READ MORE:
https://liberteouvriere.com/2024/10/27/in-spain-ariane-mieville-and-jose-luis-garcia-gonzalez-october-2024/

I've heard of it a lot recently, but I can't figure out what it is,so I've decided to ask you guys.

"I take no pleasure in showing up Bookchin’s contradictions and personal revisionism. It is a shame that he ended such a fruitful political life by writing such rubbish. Hopefully, his post-anarchist work (along, of course, with his silly « libertarian municipalism » fetish that became his undoing) will be ignored in favor of his real, important and still relevant contributions to libertarian theory."

https://liberteouvriere.com/2024/09/26/murray-bookchin-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater-review-essay-by-iain-mckay-usa-2009/

Just a few words about the court case which took place on September 19 against our Section in Spain, the CNT-AIT as we wait for their official report.

On September 18, the day before the court case, the lawyers of the Spanish union of ICL (the CNT-CIT) submitted 17 more lawsuits against unions of the CNT-AIT Spain, bringing the total to 35 lawsuits. These cases are scheduled to be heard on October 30, however, the first decision will be issued before that, so it is most likely that this decision will decide the fate of the October 30 cases.

As always, we wonder if the membership of the CNT-CIT actually made a decision to expand the lawsuits. The only ones present at the trial from that organization were the lawyers and the General Secretary of the organization, so obviously are the ones who know about this situation. In any case, it is only a small difference if the membership approved it or not: if they didn't, it is proof that it does not work on anarcho-syndicalist principles. It is did, it is also proof that they have abandoned any sense of class solidarity and only fight for copyrights and repression of other unionists.

Even the public prosecutor's office decided that the lawsuits were greatly exaggerated and ordered that the amounts of the suits be changed from 50,000 euros to 5,000. However, that is no victory as this is still outrageous to demand that an organization pay damages just for continuing to follow in its historic tradition.

There is no other major news on the development of the case and the situation is now up in the air until the court's decision. As always, we condemn these processes and well as the organization who has started this outrage as a vindictive action to inflict damage to the CNT-AIT, the organization that we in the IWA recognize to me the legitimate continuation of the CNT-AIT in Spain, not the „renovados” who have turned their organization into a vertical and legalistic farce of our ideals, using the state to repress our comrades,

As always we send our solidarity from all corners of the earth and await more news.

We never expect justice from the state, but whatever happens, nothing can break our determination to continue the struggle in the real traditions of anarcho-syndicalism, despite every effort of the state of their lackies to stop us!

General Secretary
IWA

https://iwa-ait.org/content/update-court-case-cnt-ait-spain

(Translated from Rojo y Negro September 17)

The informational event will be held on Thursday, September 19, starting at 11:30 a.m., in the Ramón y Cajal Hall of the Ateneo de Madrid (C/ Prado, 21), with the participation of:

Miguel Fadrique Sanz (general secretary of the CGT)

José Luis Carretero (general secretary of Solidaridad Obrera)

Roser Garí Pérez (activist for Palestine in Berlin)

Nadwa A. (Spanish-Palestinian activist in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions-BDS campaign)

On the occasion of the call for the day of struggle and a general strike called for next September 27 throughout the Spanish State by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the Confederación Sindical Solidaridad Obrera, to which more than 100 groups and citizen organizations have adhered, a PRESS CONFERENCE will be held for the media explaining the reasons and its intentions.

The event will present a message of support for the strike from Gaza, discuss the context of the mobilizations in Europe and explain the reasons for the call for a strike and general work stoppage of the working class in support of the Palestinian people and against public spending on the arms trade, which results in military support for the Government of Israel.

We believe that the time has come to redouble our cry of rage and indignation. Since October 7, 2023, we have witnessed thousands of murders of innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. A significant part of this population were children, victims of a perverse logic of annihilation and ethnic cleansing. In addition, we are seeing every day how the Zionist State of Israel continues, with the approval of the International Community, condemning to misery and starving those who do not die under its bombs. As workers, and also from our anarcho-syndicalist and internationalist values, we want to show our solidarity with the people of Palestine and our rejection of this genocide.

Source: Press office of the CGT Confederal Committee

ON THE TRIALS IN THE NATIONAL COURT AGAINST THE CNT-AIT 

Next Thursday, September 19th, the trials against 16 unions of the CNT-AIT (IWA) begin as a consequence of the demands of the CNT-CIT (ILC), a union with which we formed a single organisation until less than 10 years ago. We will not go into the reasons for this situation, something we already did 3 years ago in a text entitled ‘Against all odds ’. Today our intention is to inform and point out some questions about the content and the meaning of the lawsuits.

The lawsuits seek to force us (from the State) to stop using ‘the name National Confederation of Labour, the initials CNT, its distinctive signs [flags and logos] … and its emblem [Hercules fighting the Lion of Nemea]’, with the argument that ‘they are National Trademarks registered’ (at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office) in the name of the CNT-CIT. They accuse us of supplanting an identity that belongs to them and seek to confuse their potential affiliates by using their historical prestige. But the only certainty is that, of the two parties, the CNT-AIT is the only one that has always made it clear who it is and to which international it belongs (the International Workers’ Association founded in 1922). The CNT-CIT, on the other hand, one could almost say that they deliberately hide it as a marketing strategy. Who is creating the confusion? The answer seems obvious to us.

Another point that we think is relevant in the lawsuits is their intention to judicially prevent us from making public what happened, their intolerable behaviour, their political manoeuvres and their corrupt practices. They intend to silence us by making use of the National Court, achieving by the force of the State what their lack of moral legitimacy has been unable to achieve.

As if this were not shameful enough, they are asking for €50,000 from each defendant union (a total of €800,000) for the alleged ‘moral damages’ caused, with the aim of stifling us financially.

It is clear that this lawsuit not only seeks to take away our name and identity, but to deny us what we have built up over more than a century and bury us under outrageous compensation payments. The argument of the alleged ‘moral damages’ is completely ridiculous, a punitive and dishonest strategy to achieve what they have been seeking for years. Our disappearance.

Once again, and in conclusion, we call on the entire membership of the ILC ashamed of the actions of its committees to put an end to this, and on the anarchist movement in general to come out of passivity and abandon equidistance.

Salute and Social Revolution.

Press and Propaganda Secretariat of the CNT-AIT

on September 12, 2024

https://www.cntait.org/a-proposito-de-los-juicios-en-la-audiencia-nacional-contra-la-cnt-ait/