Solidarity with the CNT-AIT!

Again this year, the whole of the International Workers' Association stand in solidarity with our Section in Spain, the CNT-AIT. The unions of the CNT-AIT face the repressive and vindicative actions of the union now known as CNT-CIT. The lawsuits and legal actions brought by the Spanish Section of the CIT, or ICL (International Confederation of Labor) threaten the CNT-AIT with serious financial loss and, for some members, even time in prison.

The situation has not changed since last year when we wrote this article: https://vivacntait.iwa-ait.org/iwa-days-of-solidarity-with-the-cnt-ait-s...

We explain that the changes that took place in the CNT, particularly over the past 15 years meant that a group of individuals who were both theoretically and practically inclined against the grassroots, non-hierarchical, internationalism of the CNT-AIT, based on revolutionary ideas and practices in line with anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism, tried to re-fashion the organization to support clientele unionism and the professionalization of the organization, including financially profiting from the union's legacy. In order to achieve these goals, there was a period where the „reformers” spearheaded a number of purges from the organization, most infamously of those who exposed corruption or criticized these tendencies. At the same time, it sought to take control over the International Workers' Association and disenfranchise many of its member organizations. The results of all this were the exclusion from the IWA (as a consequence of their own auto-exclusionary actions) and the decision of part of our Section in Spain to remain the CNT-AIT, not to reform the CNT based on hierarchical practices and not to start a new international based on ideas that ran against the egalitarian traditions of the IWA.

For daring to criticize the turn in the CNT-CIT and remain the CNT-AIT, for daring to continue union activity in the same way they have done for decades, many unions of the CNT-AIT were attacked with crippling lawsuits, with attempts to take away the premises that local activists spent so much money and energy to maintain over the years. The consequences of which might mean that a few comrades even face prison time.

The International Workers Association continue to call out this behaviour – trying to repress unions that don't agree with it, to create hegemony of the CNT-CIT and using the state as a instrument to destroy unions as something completely out of line with anarcho-syndicalism. These actions render that international association a dangerous false friend of any people fighting to create free unions and replace the repression of the state with voluntary association and self-management.

Again we demand that these attacks on our comrades stop and we criticize those who continue to immorally encourage the CNT-CIT in their indefensible actions.

General Secretary
IWA