Sindicatos Libres

Presidents of the Sindicatos Libres (1922)

The Sindicatos Libres (Free Trade Unions; in Catalan: Sindicats Lliures) was a Spanish trade union born in Barcelona, Catalonia, formed by Carlist workers active during the interbellum period.

History

Ramón Sales, a leader of the Sindicatos Libres

They were founded on 10 October 1919 in Barcelona,^[1] during a time of severe and violent class conflict between employers and workers in the city, with the practice of "pistolerismo" widespread. With employers feeling that the police and Army were inefficient in their attempts to stop the left-wing agitation they sponsored the growth of the Sindicatos Libres, seeking to use them as violent militia groups.^[2] Formed by highly conservative Catholic workers, they took on some of the features of a yellow union as employer subsidies to the groups grew.^[3] Vilified by anarcho-syndicalist rivals as strikebreaking thugs,^[4] the Sindicatos Libres sided with the Police in the 1920−1922 period, when Civil Governor Severiano Martínez Anido and Chief of Police Miguel Arlegui unleashed a campaign of State Terror against trade unionists.^[5] Aside from a small Carlist core, their militancy was not particularly ideological, with members often returning to the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo.^[6] They reached 150,000 members in the 1920–21 period.^[7] However, as strike action declined in 1921 and beyond so too did the influence of the Sindicatos Libres as their violent activity became of less value to the employers.^[8]

During the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923–30) they expanded outside of Barcelona;^[9] towards the end of the 1920s their membership stood at around 200,000.^[7] However, Primo de Rivera's laws against the anarcho-syndicalists and other leftist groups again meant that the group were less essential for the street battles than they had been.^[10]

The group initially espoused a sort of heterodox Carlism with potentially revolutionary undertones,^[11] but as they progressively lost the traditionalist tenets of Carlism, Colin M. Winston argues that they evolved into a first strand of Spanish fascism.^[12]

The Confederación Nacional de Sindicatos Libres ("National Confederation of Free Trade Unions") dissolved right after the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931.^[13]

References

1. Winston 1982, p. 562.
2. Mann 2004, p. 303.
3. Mann 2004, p. 303-304.
4. Winston 1982, p. 5663.
5. Ealham 2005, p. 18-19; 44; Winston 1982, p. 563.
6. Winston 1982, p. 563.
7. Canal 2006, p. 40.
8. Mann 2004, p. 304.
9. Winston 1982, p. 570.
10. Mann 2004, p. 306.
11. Winston 1982, p. 568.
12. Winston 1982, p. 558.
13. Hoya Sanz 2006, p. 146.

Bibliography

• Canal, Jordi (2006). Banderas blancas, boinas rojas: una historia política del carlismo, 1876-1939 (in Spanish). Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia. ISBN 84-96467-34-1.
• Ealham, Chris (2005). Class, Culture and Conflict in Barcelona 1898–1937. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-57252-1.
• Mann, Michael (2004). Fascists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53855-6.
• Sanz Hoya, Julián (2006). De la resistencia a la reacción: las derechas frente a la Segunda República (Cantabria, 1931-1936): De la resistencia a la reacción. Las derechas frente a la Segunda República. Santander: Universidad de Cantabria. ISBN 84-8102-420-1.
• Winston, Colin M. (1982). "The Proletarian Carlist Road to Fascism: Sindicalismo Libre". Journal of Contemporary History. SAGE. 17 (4): 557–585. ISSN 0022-0094. JSTOR 260522.