The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT, General Union of Workers) is a major Spanish trade union, historically affiliated with the

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gov ...

(PSOE).

History

The UGT was founded 12 August 1888 by

Pablo Iglesias Posse Pablo Iglesias Posse (17 October 1850 – 9 December 1925) was a Spanish socialist and Marxism, Marxist Labour movement, labour leader. He is regarded as the father of Spanish socialism, having founded the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( ...

Mataró Mataró () is the capital and largest town of the ''comarca'' of the Maresme, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia Autonomous Community, Spain. It is located on the Costa del Maresme, to the south of Costa Brava, between Cabrera de Mar and ...

(

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

), with

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

socialism as its ideological basis, despite its statutory apolitical status. Until its nineteenth Congress in 1920, it did not consider

class struggle Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The forms ...

as a basic

principle A principle is a proposition or value that is a guide for behavior or evaluation. In law, it is a Legal rule, rule that has to be or usually is to be followed. It can be desirably followed, or it can be an inevitable consequence of something, suc ...

of trade union action. Being a member of the UGT implies an

affiliation Affiliation or affiliate may refer to: * Affiliate (commerce), a legal form of entity relationship used in Business Law * Affiliation (family law), a legal form of family relationship * Affiliate marketing * Affiliate network or affiliation platf ...

to the PSOE and vice versa. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

era, the UGT followed a tactical line of close relationship and unity of action with the

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ( en, National Confederation of Labor; CNT) is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions, which was long affiliated with the International Workers' Association (AIT). When working wi ...

(CNT, National Labour Confederation). The UGT grew rapidly after 1917, and by 1920 had 200,000 members. This era came to a sudden end with the advent of the dictatorship of

Miguel Primo de Rivera Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquess of Estella (8 January 1870 – 16 March 1930), was a dictator, aristocrat, and military officer who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during Spain's Restoration era. He deepl ...

, who gave a legal monopoly on labor organizing to his own government-sponsored union. While the CNT opted for a radical confrontation with the regime and were prohibited on this account, the UGT, although in disagreement with the dictatorship, adopted a collaborative attitude in order to continue to operate legally. The UGT grew from 277,011 in December 1930, to 958,451 in December 1931, to 1,041,539 in June 1932. Much of this growth occurred in its land workers' federation, the ''Federación Nacional de Trabajadores de la Tierra'' (FNTT), which grew from 36,639 in June 1930 to 392,953 in June 1932, raising the proportion of land workers in the UGT from 13 percent to 37 percent.Preston, Paul. ''The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction and Revolution in the Spanish Second Republic.'' Routledge. New York. 1994. p. 78. The influx of these workers (''jornaleros'') caused the union's radicalisation, and the bloody breakout of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

deepened the internal fissures that resulted in the departure of

Largo Caballero Francisco Largo Caballero (15 October 1869 – 23 March 1946) was a Spanish politician and trade unionist. He was one of the historic leaders of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and of the Workers' General Union (UGT). In 1936 and 19 ...

from the position of UGT secretary general in 1937. General

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...

confined the UGT to exile and clandestinity after his victory in the Spanish Civil War until his death in 1975. The Union emerged from secrecy during the democratic transition after Franco's death, as did the

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

Workers' Commissions The Workers' Commissions ( es, Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) since the 1970s has become the largest trade union in Spain. It has more than one million members, and is the most successful union in labor elections, competing with the Unión General de ...

(Comisiones Obreras, CCOO). The UGT and CCOO, between them, constitute the major avenues for workers' representation in today's Spain, with the

anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence i ...

Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) a distant third.

Objectives

The UGT declares itself to be an institution of productive workers, organized along lines of trades and liberal professions, which respects

freedom of thought Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints. Overview Every person attempts to have a cognitive proficiency by ...

, leading toward the transformation of the society, in order to establish it on the basis of

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

equality Equality may refer to: Society * Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing ** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elit ...

and solidarity.

Federations and foundations

Current affiliates

The Unión de Trabajadores por Cuenta Propia (UTCP, Union of Self-Employed Workers) is not an organism of UGT. It is a bottom-up association, formed by the farmers' union UPA and the professional and autonomous workers' union, UPTA, who united in this manner to enhance their representation inside the Union and to form a united front on factional issues where they have common interests.

Former affiliates

References

* ''Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent Spanish-language Wikipedia article, accessed 11 April 2005.''

External links

UGT – Unión General de Trabajadores
– UGT website
UGT – Unión General de Trabajadores-Federación Española Trabajadores de la Enseñanza de Castilla y León
– FETE-UGT CyL website
Portal del Transporte de la Sección Sindical de UGT
* Unió General de Treballadors de Catalunya Catalan autonomous region's UGT (from Wikipedia in Catalan)
Small history of the UGT in Catalonia
Workers at the Center of Mataró and the 1888 Congress of the Barcelona.
História del sindicato
– History of the union {{DEFAULTSORT:Union General De Trabajadores Trade unions in Spain National federations of trade unions International Trade Union Confederation European Trade Union Confederation Trade unions established in 1888 Spanish Revolution of 1936