Origins of the labor movement in Spain

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.

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 Factory Commission responded that the workers "loaf", waste time eating sandwiches and drinking wine, in addition to denying that the bosses were cutting wages "at least in general."

The captain general brought together two representatives from the Factory Commission and two from the Board of Commerce to recommend that instead of lengthening the length of the pieces when there was a crisis, they reduce the working days per week.

At first they were temporary in nature with a specific purpose, but the workers' commissions formed to discuss demands with the employers asked the captain general of Catalonia to authorize them to become permanent associations.

Thus, a commission made up of three workers interviewed them: "They spoke of the ease that the main manufacturers have of being able to join together in a banquet at the inn in Gràcia or elsewhere, due to their small number, dragging their opinion that of others, while the day laborers only needed the largest amount of publicity to understand each other.

"[5] In February 1839 a Royal Order was promulgated authorizing the formation of mutual aid societies and charities and subsequently the Barcelona Weavers Association was established, the first union in Spain.

As the workers' delegate Juan Alsina said months later: "If Zapatero had not given the order to prohibit associations, the working class would have remained calm in their workshops awaiting the decision of the exhibition that dated May 11 of 1855 he had raised the Government asking for a remedy for his ills.

"[15] On July 5, two commissions left for Madrid to meet with the president of the government, Baldomero Espartero, from whom they were going to ask for the recognition of the right of association, the ten-hour day, and the constitution of a jury made up of workers and employers.

[16] Then Colonel Saravia arrived in Barcelona, envoy of General Espartero, who maintained the support of the popular classes, who finally succeeded in bringing the strike to an end on July 11 by making vague promises and setting up a mixed jury.

"[17] On September 7, an "Exhibition presented by the working class to the Constituent Cortes" was made public in Madrid, which was accompanied by an "Address to the Spanish workers" in which it was asked to support it - the fundamental request was the recognition of freedom of association - and instructions were given for collecting signatures.

[18] At the time the "Exhibition" was delivered, the Congress of Deputies had already been discussing the bill presented on October 8 by the Minister of Public Works, Manuel Alonso Martínez, on "exercise, police, companies, jurisdiction and inspection of the manufacturing industry" which in principle responded to the promises made by Espartero's envoy to Barcelona to end the general strike, but which set aside the most important workers' demands.

[20] After the progressive biennium, workers' societies were banned, although they continued to function in hiding, as demonstrated by the 1858 strike of "Industrial Spain" in Sants, which cannot be explained without the existence of some kind of organization.

On June 10, 1861, the government of the Liberal Union chaired by Leopoldo O'Donnell approved a Royal Order allowing the formation of mutual aid societies called Montepíos, although with numerous restrictions — they could not have more than 1,000 members; a maximum quota was established; surplus funds were to be deposited in the capital's savings bank.

As Tuñón de Lara points out, "the essence of the process of social awareness was translated into the conviction that it was necessary to associate precisely as workers and to "resist capital", that is, with a social-professional purpose.

[24] The newspaper La Asociación, directed by Josep Roca i Galès, a great defender of cooperativism, was also a victim of repression and on July 8, 1866, it was closed, so it only published fourteen issues since it was released on April 1 of that same year.

From the Conference that met the following year to prepare its first Congress - to be held in Geneva from September 3 to 8, 1866 - echoed El Obrero in its issue of November 1, 1865 - on March 18, 1866 Gusart wrote an article on the International.

The 3rd Congress, held in Brussels between September 6 and 13, 1868, was attended by a Spanish delegate, "Sarro Magallán", as a representative of the so-called "Iberian Labor Legion" and of "the workers' associations of Catalonia."

However, as Tuñón de Lara has pointed out, "the International's contacts with Spain, before the 1868 revolution, were as slight as they were ephemeral and nothing allows us to speak of a Spanish labor movement related to the IWA.

[32] There it was agreed to support the establishment of the Federal Republic and the participation of the working class in the elections and the publication of the weekly La Federación - which would become the most important internationalist newspaper.

[35] Although the AIT founded in London in 1864 was already known, direct contact with it came through the Italian Giuseppe Fanelli, sent by Mikhail Bakunin, who arrived in Barcelona at the end of October 1868 where he met with the leaders of the Central Directorate.

After passing through Tarragona, Tortosa and Valencia, accompanied by Elie Reclus, Arístides Rey, Fernando Garrido and José María Orense, Fanelli went to Madrid where he arrived on November 4.

From there the initial nucleus of the International would emerge in Madrid, made up of twenty-one people: five construction painters, four typographers — one of them Anselmo Lorenzo, two tailors, two engravers — one of them Tomás González Morago, two shoemakers, a carpenter, a gilder, a lithographer, a rope maker, a horseman and a journalist.

This group, as Tuñón de Lara has pointed out, "was going to act in a favorable "field of cultivation" facilitated by the plurality of workers' societies in the Barcelona city and the experience of corporate action that existed there.

[41][42] "Thus, the first Spanish affiliates to the AIT believed that the program of the Bakuninist secret society (suppression of the State, rejection of parliamentary politics, abolition of social classes and collectivization of property) coincided with the principles of the First International.

"[46] They also presented a report on the situation in Spain after the triumph of the Revolution of September 1868 in which they said:[47] Taking advantage of a military movement, the people have overthrown the throne, which always oppresses the living forces of labor.

It is enough to verify that in Spain we know of the existence of 195 companies with more than 25,000 members.In Basel, Farga Pellicer and Sentiñón established a close relationship with Mikhail Bakunin, with whom they had already contacted by letter, which led to a change in their conceptions that would later be transferred to the Catalan labor movement.

"[49] In January 1870, the Madrid group, which already had 23 office sections, brought out the newspaper La Solidaridad, whose writers included Vicente López, Hipólito Pauly, Máximo Ambau, Juan Alcázar, Anselmo Lorenzo, Francisco Mora and Tomás González Morago.