The Spanish miners show the European proletariat the right path: indefinite strikes

For more than two months, the coal miners of several Spanish provinces – Asturias, Castile and Leon, Aragon and Palencia – have been out on indefinite strike to counter the Spanish Government’s measures designed to drastically reduce lending to the mining industry: a 63% reduction of state contributions to the mining sector equivalent to a cut of about 200 million Euros.

Please note that the “aid” from the ECB to the Spanish state and its banks, through the European fund EFSF, is around 100 billion Euros.

The loss of competitiveness of the Iberian mines endangers thousands of jobs in an area already heavily reduced in the last 30 years by previous governments.

The strike began on May 23, supported by the two main Spanish trade unions, Union General de los Trabajadores and Comisiones Obreras.

These organizations over the years have proven to be no longer useful or reclaimable to a genuine class action, being now the faithful servants of the owners and their governments of both the left and right. But these unions, which are still very strong and well rooted in those regions, are apparently supporting the protest. In some mines, in order to work, it is necessary to have the SOMA-FIA-UGT or the CCOO card.

In the 50 mines of Asturias there are also several small “independent” unions: in an interview with a local radio station one of their militants explicitly stated that the danger to workers not only comes from the executive and his ministry, but is also to be found deep inside the labour movement, in those Unions who betray the miners, acting in cahoots with the bosses and their government.

The primary objective of regime trade unions is not to defend living and working conditions, but to safeguard the national economy and to protect the “good of the country” which is nothing more than the profit of the ruling class. Even in the nominal “left”, the policy of these unions does not change its timbre.

The two main Spanish trade unions tend to limit the fight, water it down and keep it weak by isolating it from the rest of the class to prevent a dangerous wildfire from breaking out amongst all workers.

This is the same union policy which was adopted in 1984 by the corrupt English Trade Unions againstthe epic miners’ strike; against the 165,000 workers who rebelled for almost a year against the Thatcher government’s massive attack conducted in the name of ‘restructuring’ the coal mining industry. The British miners were betrayed by these organizations, combative only in appearance, which broke the front of the miners by sowing division and taking away the indispensable solidarity with the other key categories of workers. The defeat was inevitable.

From the very outset almost all of the Iberian miners, moved to genuine proletarian anger, swept aside the defeatist directives of the union leaders and organized several marches and effective roadblocks. Some workers also occupied the pits. There have been numerous clashes with the Guardia Civile who attacked dozens of barricades on the region’s major roads.

In a short time the miners have also organised themselves from a “military” point of view, by adopting defence techniques designed to repel the attacks of the police.

Roadblocks have occurred in many parts of the country and especially in Asturias, the biggest being on the N-630 and N-632. Several barricades were built along the Mine Motorway, the AS-I and the A-66, and many other minor roads in the vicinity of Oviedo. Several barriers were placed along the railway, preventing the normal movement of trains.

During the fighting the expulsion of the apparatus of state repression has been integrated into the festivities of the local proletarian population, which has often taken an active part in the strike and the struggle. In these regions, especially among young people, the unemployment rate is among the highest in the peninsula, and thus in Europe.

In several cases, the clashes were very rough, with injuries on both sides, and in the fighting the police did not hesitate to shoot rubber bullets at the protesters. The miners built barricades to defend themselves, answering blow for blow with stones, slingshots and iron pipes used as improvised rocket launchers.

About a week after the beginning of the strike, there was a huge strike in Madrid with thousands of miners arriving from different regions: the Spanish democratic State, belonging to the equally democratic Europe, did not hesitate to react with beatings and arrests.

On June 22, what has been called the “marcha negra” began; a march of miners to Madrid, probably fuelled and supported by the central trade unions with the intention of exhausting the struggle. Several columns of workers, from various regions, have thus crossed the country.

On the night of July 10, after 19 days of walking, the march ended when about three hundred miners entered the city. The response of proletarian Madrid was surprising: thousands of people, many of them workers, escorted their entry applauding them, encouraging them, repeatedly shouting “long live the struggle of the working class!” The arrival at night was certainly due to the cold calculations of the union leaderships, frightened by the response and by the solidarity of the city of Madrid.

The next morning, while the Spanish government suddenly abolished the thirteenth, a huge demonstration led by the miners set out from Colón square heading towards the Ministry of Industry where they arrived at about two in the afternoon. Then began violent clashes; the police charged immediately, firing rubber bullets at head height. Miners and protesters tried to regroup but were dispersed by a number of attacks with horses and armoured vehicles. By the end of the day there had been numerous arrests and injuries.

Some miners interviewed after the event stated: “the march has ended, the war has begun”.

Inevitably this struggle takes us back in time, to the resistance in the 80s against mine closures, and even further back to the powerful strikes of 1962, when Franco was in power, but especially to one of the major events of the struggle of the international proletariat, the Asturian Comune. We will never forget their heroic impulse, the shameful isolation in which it was buried, or the defeat and subsequent repression.

The vital necessity for workers today, same as back then is the creation of a single proletarian front that is founded purely on the basis of economic and union demands, to mobilize on the economic field the highest number of workers. It also needs a single party that is actually revolutionary, and free from compromises with other political organizations. Stalinism and reformism of every shade, which still today, wrongly, appear close to workers, are false friends and pursue one single end: to sabotage working class interests.

What clearly emerges from this struggle is the extreme necessity for the workers to finally place themselves on a class terrain in order to be able to respond to the attacks of the bourgeoisie. The ritual struggle, the small Friday strike, maybe just a few hours, which for years now, even in Spain has been promoted and supported by the trade unions of the regime, is now meaningless. The workers, instinctively, have immediately become intransigent, “us against them“. No peace, no cooperation is possible.

There is no point in ignoring the fact that a possible victory of the miners would be very ephemeral, particularly thanks to the policy of isolating unions according to professional category, as it was in the past in England. But this generous struggle will surely leave an indelible mark on the entire Spanish working class, making clear the need for a real class organization, strong and extensive. A class union today would not only be able to direct the struggle of this combative sector, but would tend to merge it into a general strike capable of uniting the demands and the will to mobilize of all sections. A class union would have, as its first objective, therefore, not the defence of the mine or factory, but the uncompromising protection of wages, by fighting against the measures the government is trying to impose and calling for full wages for unemployed workers.

An initial and partial hint of this future scenario was seen on June 18 in Leon and Asturias, when the shipyards, the transport sector and the teachers Union went on strike with the miners, demonstrating the fundamental instinct of class solidarity.

The struggle of the Spanish miners, though still fettered by false union friends and politicians, is a great and practical response, using genuine class methods, to the attacks by the bourgeoisie of all the nations of Europe against the working class. May it serve as an example to all workers!