CNT-CIT or upside down anarcho-syndicalism
(Note from the IWA General Secretary: The author of this article is a member of one of the unions being sued by the CIT organization in Spain. A few changes/notes were made to the English version of article for the purpose of clarity by the IWA General Secretary.)
Since the Congress of Cordoba in 2010, a faction of the CNT-AIT (now in CIT) began laying the groundwork to gradually abandon its anarcho-syndicalist principles. This was, and still is, an open secret. None of us who, from within the CNT (AIT), have been following its developments have missed its drift towards reformism, masked by an old discourse in our Movement, aiming to make the CNT a more modern organization in line with the times. This is a tired and worn-out narrative.
Since that Congress, many from within have conspired to dismantle the ideology of the CNT, and with this goal in mind, they have worked through the following Congresses to strip the CNT of those unions which did not agree with their manoeuvers. To accomplish this, they didn’t hesitate to do use whatever means they could. To secure more votes, they even create phantom unions, purchasing more membership fees than they had members. When these actions were denounced, and it was later proven that the denouncers were right, those who raised the alarm were expelled. [1] A confederal technical committee was established, which has been used to redirect part of the Direct Action of the unions toward this committee, which, moreover, has salaried members (some of whom justify themselves by claiming they are self-employed), and they are now demanding its expansion, which will lead to more paid positions. [2]
At the Zaragoza Congress in 2015, they managed to dissolve many of the Various Trades Unions by increasing, by two hundred percent, the number of members required to be classified as a Various Trades Union, thereby eliminating part of the CNT-AIT’s structure across the Iberian Peninsula.[3] During that Congress, the unions declared that the AIT was the international wing of the CNT-AIT up until then and that it needed to be refounded. [4] (This refoundation was deemed necessary because the AIT had refused to allow the Spanish CNT to impose the criteria it wanted, in order to gain more votes than the other sections, with the clear objective of imposing its decisions.[5]) Since the International did not allow these criteria to be imposed, after the aforementioned Zaragoza Congress, in collaboration with some organizations from other countries, they started meetings, organically unaligned with the CNT, [6] that eventually led to the creation of a new international organization, the International Confederation of Labor (CIT).
In the diluted version of anarcho-syndicalism within the CNT-CIT, opinions have surfaced that it is a feminist organization, claiming that there must be gender parity in the committees, as if it were a vertical and authoritarian organization. Nothing could be further from the truth, because in a CNT assembly, everyone should be equal in their capacity to be elected to a management position, which is solely a management role. However, lately, what is happening is that the committees decide which union information gets forwarded and what doesn’t. The committees give their opinions on matters, and if a union responds with a clarification, it is the committee that decides whether that union’s opinion sees the light of day or not. [7]
All of these things, along with expulsions of regional federations to later re-admit the unions that suit them — as seen in the Regional of Levante and the Central Region — have caused some unions to leave the CNT-CIT, tired of enduring so much internal rot. However, it’s also true that many unions and comrades remain, holding on to see if it’s possible to reverse the situation.
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