Spain: lessons from the metal workers' struggle in Cadiz

Last Monday, 7 July, an assembly of workers decided to put an end to the indefinite strike that the metalworkers in the province of Cadiz had been holding for a decent collective agreement. We have seen 13 days of strike, mobilisations and police repression, from 23 June to 6 July. What lessons can we learn from this extraordinary struggle?

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In previous articles, we have outlined the character and scale of this huge mobilisation of the Cadiz industrial proletariat.

In the days leading up to the end of the strike, its continuation was becoming increasingly difficult, after days of open betrayal by the union leaderships of the UGT and CCOO [the two main unions]. Since 27 June (and even earlier in the case of the UGT), they had abandoned the workers to their fate, once they had massively rejected the agreement signed by the UGT leadership with the FEMCA bosses, in the assemblies.

The metalworkers showed enormous heroism, sustaining their struggle with hardship funds and active solidarity of coming from residents in their neighbourhoods and localities; with demonstrations, daily assemblies and pickets at the entrance to the factories, and with the organisational and agitational exertions of the comrades of the CTM and CGT-Metal [two smaller, militant unions].

The leaderships of the big unions divided the struggle from the word go, making no effort to draw in the heavy battalions of the proletariat in Navantia and Airbus in the Bay of Cadiz, and Acerinox in the Campo de Gibraltar. This, despite the fact that the latter had already led a heroic struggle lasting about 5 months last year, a struggle that also ended in defeat and exhaustion.

The union leaders excused themselves, saying that this sector was not affected by the provincial metal agreement, as they had their own company agreements, with better conditions. Hence, the strike remained concentrated in the auxiliary industry, where small companies predominate.

In the end, by the beginning of July, the strike had already been reduced to the Bay of Cadiz, although this is the main centre of the metal industry in the province. In the final days of the strike, with no clear prospect of victory despite the sacrifice and dedication of thousands of workers, the movement gradually frayed as the workers faced escalating blackmail and threats of company closures, redundancies, etc.

A defeat that prepares advances in consciousness

Although the movement has not achieved its objective, which was to defeat the agreement of UGT with FEMCA, which we have already explained in previous articles, it has at least managed to stop one of the main attacks: the proposed contract that would have seen new, young workers receiving 75 percent of the salary.

There are defeats and defeats. The worst defeats are defeats suffered without a fight. Especially when workers are aware of the enormous strength they have, these can leave a legacy of powerlessness, frustration and a loss of self-confidence, from which it can take years to recover. But defeats suffered after a struggle carried to the end can leave behind a tradition and a point of reference for future struggles. In the course of these struggles, the workers grow in stature. They become aware of their role in production and in society. They feel their strength and becoming aware that nothing moves, that nothing is produced, without their will. They practice and experience solidarity at every step. They act as free men and women, capable of determining their own destiny in democratic assemblies, mass mobilisations and, at times, can even perceive the fear of their bosses. Such defeats are assimilated with anger and indignation, and feed a class hatred that will emerge more concentrated and solid in the next battles.

It is true that this defeat was not only inflicted in the course of open struggle between capital and labour, but more fundamentally through the open betrayal of those who formally represent the workers, the leaderships of the UGT and CCOO. That experience will not pass in vain.

A struggle should be waged for greater representation in works councils, of more shop stewards, etc. from these unions / Image: CGT Zona Sur, Twitter

The capitalist state, under the leadership of the ‘progressive’ interior minister Marlaska, also applied itself to the task of open repression at the height of the struggle. It does so now with selective repression, when the struggle is over and the workers cannot respond as before, with prominent workers arbitrarily arrested for their role in the struggle. They are making an example of them. As a policeman said in the similar repression that took place at the end of the indefinite strike in November 2021: “this is so that the people don't rise up again”.

The struggle has ended with 25 arrests, several with prison sentences and bails of €85,000 to be released with charges.

The workers, especially the younger ones, have learned more in this struggle than in years of daily exploitation. They have been able to see the role of the state, the police and the judges, as instruments in the service of capital. They have seen the venal local press and radio exposed, as they worked to help discredit the struggle. They have also seen the theatrical role played by the arbitration commissions who came in on the side of the bosses, like the Junta de Andalucía.

All of this establishes the need for a political struggle, and not just a trade union struggle, against a whole system organised to exploit the working class.

What lessons can we learn from this?

Having said all this, the struggle leaves important lessons. The first and most important is the role of the UGT and CCOO trade union bureaucracies.

They rely, above all, on the upper strata of the working class, and abandon the workers in the small enterprises to their fate. They accept the philosophy of capital, that the destiny of the wage earners is to make profits for the bosses, and the more the better. The CMT and the CGT have proved to be the organisations most committed to struggle, so an intense campaign of organising and affiliation to these organisations is necessary to allow a broader organisation of the class in this sector. A struggle should be waged for greater representation in works councils, of more shop stewards, etc. from these unions.

The second important lesson, which follows from the previous one, is to be aware of the objective role that the UGT and CCOO represent. We must accept that, like it or not, for the time being they remain the largest and most influential trade union organisations in the sector.

The key question is not simply to compete in the short term with these organisations in terms of size, but of how to gain an echo and sympathy from their rank and file, such that the bureaucratic and treacherous actions of their leaders can be weakened. This means the militant unions should be careful not to marginalise themselves from the questions of the daily life and actions of these organisations, but to consistently call for a united front to physically draw workers together, regardless of which union they follow or are affiliated to.

In all likelihood, these leaderships will almost always reject the offer for a united front when it is offered, or even ignore it entirely, but this will give authority to the CTM and the CGT in the eyes of the ranks of the UGT and CCOO, exposing the fact that it is their leaders who are refusing to fight for the common interests of the workers.

The initial strikes on 18 and 20 June, prior to the indefinite strike, was called by the UGT and CCOO. Although the CTM and CGT did call on the workers to join the fight, it might have perhaps been appropriate to have been an official part of that strike call in order to combat the malicious campaign of the UGT and CCOO leaders who reproached the CTM and CGT, in bad faith, for not calling the strike.

The metal strike in Cadiz has taken place in the context of other, similarly courageous and heroic struggles by metalworkers in other parts of Spain. Such was the case of the metal workers in Cantabria or the ongoing struggle in Navantia Cartagena, which continues after 23 days of exemplary struggle.

As we pointed out in our previous article, it would have been desirable to unify all the ongoing conflicts, with days of struggle and mobilisations on the same days, with representations of workers from the different conflicts present in each place, and even to call for a joint day of action at a common location to give more visibility to the conflicts, etc.

Of course, the ones who had the means to propose and do such a thing were the CCOO and UGT, who are strong in all these places. Perhaps during future conflicts, even if the CTM and CGT do not have the local presence or strength on the ground to carry out such an action, they could make a strong appeal for it along these lines. This would certainly have gained an enormous echo in all the areas involved, and could have forced the leaderships of UGT and CCOO to move in this direction. At the very least, it would have forced them to drop the mask and openly oppose it, thus discrediting themselves along the way.

Finally, it is clear that subcontracting is a powerful tool of the bosses to divide and weaken the workers. There is no technical or material reason why the auxiliary industry cannot formally and legally be integrated into the big companies in the sector. At least a large mass of these small companies that exist exclusively as middlemen could be brought in house.

A larger mass of workers with the same working conditions would multiply the latent strength and power of the working class in these areas two or three times over. Therefore, the demand for the integration of the existing auxiliary industries into the big companies such as Navantia, Dragados, Airbus, Acerinox, among others, could find an important echo in the workers of the sector as a whole.

This demand could be complemented with another one that proposes that the same agreement and the same conditions be applied to workers who carry out their productive work in the parent company, regardless of the auxiliary company to which they belong. The issue is not the ‘practicality’ or likelihood of achieving these demands, but that, being just, necessary and reasonable, they act as a lever to rally and mobilise the workers together. Such demands would help to raise their level of consciousness, and would expose the inability of the capitalist system to satisfy the needs of the working class.

The Cadiz metal fight, regardless of its outcome, has risen to a higher level than the previous one in November 2021. Undoubtedly, the next battle of the Cadiz metalworkers will rise to an even greater height. The working class will be more prepared and organised. And by then, we will be able to bend the arm of the class enemy and its agents in the workers' movement. This struggle must be seen as another link in the long struggle of the working class against capitalism as a whole, for its social emancipation and for a socialist society.