Cnt/cgt

[Durruti's friend]

I'm not sure if this thread belongs to this sub-forum but I don't know where else to put it.

The question is simple - what is the difference between the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) and the CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo)? I know CGT is a splinter group of the CNT and that it isn't a part of the IWA, but what are the political differences between the two unions? Stuff like which one is more reformist and which is more "hardcore" anarchist, as well as which has more members.

Thank you in advance!

[DDR]

There's no huge difference between the two, they function in the same way. The only difference is that the CGT concurrrs to the "syndicalist elections". In the workplace people vote their union representatives there, who are the only ones who can discuss sindical matters with the bosses as well as giving laboral advice and protection to the workers. Because having a union representative gives you money from the State the CNT is against this practice, as well as because it is a way of organizing the workplace from the times of Franco.

As for which one is bigger, IIRC the have both the same number of afiliates, arround 50k, maybe being the CGT a little bit bigger.

[subcp]

I think participation in the works councils is a much bigger deal, DDR.

[DDR]

I think participation in the works councils is a much bigger deal, DDR.

Sorry, but what do you mean? Which works councils are you speaking about?

[subcp]

I mean the works councils in Spain that, what became the CGT, opted to participate in. Isn't it true that participation in the works councils leads to infusions of state money to participating unions?

Plus you get into the question of principles: why would a pro-revolutionary group participate in organizations which are directly tied to the owners and the state for the interest of preserving industrial peace? It sounds much like the red union equivalent of the communist parties participating in parliamentarism in the 1920's- opportunism that aids the strangling of class principles from a nominally revolutionary organization.

[DDR]

I mean the works councils in Spain that, what became the CGT, opted to participate in. Isn't it true that participation in the works councils leads to infusions of state money to participating unions?

Yes, as I said in the post before.


Plus you get into the question of principles: why would a pro-revolutionary group participate in organizations which are directly tied to the owners and the state for the interest of preserving industrial peace? It sounds much like the red union equivalent of the communist parties participating in parliamentarism in the 1920's- opportunism that aids the strangling of class principles from a nominally revolutionary organization.

The participation in those "enterprise comitees" is just a tool, take for example the SAT while it participates in said elections at the same time it expropiates lands from the military and aristocracy, buildings from banks and food from big corporate supermarkets. While the CNT thanks to its purism and its spirit of 36 have lost the most advanced and most consecuent militants in Seville, one of its biggest feuds, and tends to be a pariah inside the andalusian revolutionary movement.