CNT Holds its Tenth Congress

More than 500 delegates, representing approximately 120 unions of the Confederation, will meet in the Andalucian capital to discuss proposals and alternatives for the new challenges imposed by the the starkest version of Capital, which is hitting the rights and basic needs of the working class with full force.

For the CNT, this Congress is particularly significant, thus it is not in vain that it will be held when this anarcho-syndicalist organization celebrates one hundred years its existence. A century of struggle, full of comrades who have built the libertarian ideal with their lives and efforts. A century of successes and also of mistakes, but always filled with the conviction that the working class can create a different society through direct action, solidarity and self management. A society for the people, not for money.

The Congress X is the ascertation that the CNT is still alive and fighting one hundred years later, as demonstrated daily in the workplace and in the street. It was the protagonist of many struggles last year: Flightcare, FCC, Casolo, SEAGA, Atento, EULEN, SGAE, Mercadona, ISS, Ryanair, PRASUR, ACSA, CESPA .... It has also expanded into sectors hitherto neglected or only slightly touched by the official unions: archaeology, social Intervention, forestry (where CNT called a strike on its own in Galicia last summer) and has taken a leading role in promoting assemblies of the unemployed or general strikes in places like Lebrija for the fair division of labor. And CNT is always true to its principles.

Because, despite the time which has passed, the premises of anarcho-syndicalism and its analysis of society and labor are still valid; even if there are those who have an interest in claiming we don't exist, we keep on working day after day to put our principles into practice. The industrial action we do shows that despite the constraints imposed on us, a trade unionism beyond the trap of union elections, without unionists released from work duties, without subsidies, based on mutual aid and solidarity and not on inert "representativity" is possible.

Now, when the echoes of labor reform have still not abated and the future effects of the pension reform are just beginning to be discerned, the CNT seeks to create an organized response at the X Congress, a coordinated and powerful affront to the new turn of the screw of finance capitalism, insatiable and immoral.

Parallel to the X Congress, Cultural Days events have been taking place since the beginnings of November and will continue during the Congress proceedings. (More information: http://cnt.es/xcongreso In English: http://cnt.es/en/xcongress)