Confederación de Sindicatos Unitarios de Trabajadores
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| Full name | Confederación de Sindicatos Unitarios de Trabajadores |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1977 |
| Members | 450,000 (1978) |
| Key people | Jerónimo Lorente, general secretary |
| Office location | Farmacia 3, 1º izq., Madrid |
| Country | Spain |
Confederación de Sindicatos Unitarios de Trabajadores (Confederation of Workers Unitarian Trade Unions, abbreviated CSUT) was a trade union centre in Spain.
The organization emerged from a split away from Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO.) trade union movement in 1976. The Party of Labour of Spain (PTE), which was the driving force behind the launching of CSUT, was part of the 'Minority Tendency' inside CC.OO. A meeting was held on November 7, 1976 in Coslada at which opponents to the CC.OO. leadership gathered. The CC.OO. dissidents opposed the dominance of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) in CC.OO. However, the dissident unionists gathered in Coslada were split in two. One group went on to form Sindicato Unitario. The other, led by Jerónimo Lorente, formed CSUT at an assembly in Vallecas in March 1977. Lorente became president and Antonio Castillo confederal secretary of CSUT. In May 1977, the National Confederation of Catalonia was founded at a legal congress in Barcelona, with around 1,000 participants.
CSUT called for 'organic' unity of the labour movement, criticizing the reformist trade unions and their links to political parties. CSUT itself, however, was closely linked to the PTE. Only one out of ten CSUT secretariat members was not a PTE member. In January 1978 Daniel Cando replaced Juan Domingo Linde as general secretary of CSUT in Catalonia, following Domingo Linde's expulsion from PTE a few months earlier. Diamián Rodríguez was the general secretary of CSUT in Madrid.
In the 1978 trade union elections CSUT raised the slogan "La CSUT, el sindicato que habla claro, da soluciones a los problemas y jamás se vende" ('CSUT, the trade union that speaks out, gives solution to the problems and never sells out'). The organization kicked off its campaign on January 20, 1978 with a public meeting at Colegio La Paloma in Madrid, with some 2,000 participants. At the event, Lorente stated that CSUT was far ahead of all other contenders for the third place in the polls. In the midst of the elections CSUT called for a strike in Correos (Post), a move criticized by the management and other unions as an electoral stunt.
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