Confederação Geral de Trabalhadores Portugueses - Intersindical Nacional
The Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses - Intersindical Nacional (CGTP-IN, German: General Association of Portuguese Workers - National Trade Union Confederation), also called CGTP or Intersindical , is a Portuguese trade union confederation based in Lisbon . The CGTP is close to the Communist Party of Portugal and is considered the largest union in the country, ahead of the UGT . Both unions belong to the European Trade Union Confederation .
history
Prehistory to 1969
The first workers' associations, for mutual aid or further training, were founded in the climate of the Liberal Revolution in Portugal as early as the 1820s. In 1853, the Centro Promotor do Melhoramento da Classe Laboriosa (German for example: Action Center for Improvement for the Working Class) was the most important association. In 1875, the Partido Socialista Português was the first socialist party to be founded. The first conflicts arose between the various workers' unions when some became anarchist and the other socialist. The number of clubs continued to grow. In 1889 there were 392 associations with around 130,000 members in the country, mainly in Lisbon and Porto.
In 1876 there were already 24 unions, which grew to 135 by 1904, while the workers' aid associations grew from 65 to 590 in the same period. The anarcho-syndicalism was the dominant flow in the Portuguese workers. In 1908 their first newspaper appeared, A Greve (German: The Strike). In 1909 the first trade union congress took place in Lisbon ( Congresso Sindical Cooperativo ), which ended with a split between anarchists and socialists.
After the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910, the trade union association experienced further popularity, in particular due to the increasing social tensions. Despite all the differences, the União Operária Nacional (UON, German for example: National Workers' Union) was founded in 1914, the first umbrella organization for all, both socialist and anarchist trade unions. As the republican government's repression of the trade unions increased, they broke with the political parties. The unions felt connected to the Zimmerwald Manifesto and rejected Portugal's entry into the First World War in 1916. When prices rose sharply in Portugal as a result of the start of the war and the supply situation deteriorated significantly, the UON organized a first general strike in 1918 , which was also directed against the right-wing coup by Sidónio Pais at the end of 1917. After the fatal assassination attempt on Pais at the end of 1918, the republican government feared a strengthening monarchist reaction and it made concessions to the unions. In 1919, for example, the 8-hour day was introduced. At its congress in Coimbra in the same year, the UON was renamed Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores (CGT, German: General Association of Workers).
As a result of the October Revolution of 1917, communist currents emerged in the CGT. The Communist Party of Portugal (PCP) was founded in 1921, but the majority of the CGT remained anarcho-syndicalist and social revolutionary. She had close ties to the American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), among others .
The military coup in 1926 from the right was followed by the establishment of the corporate , semi- fascist Estado Novo dictatorship by Salazar in 1932 . If the union structures had already been strongly opposed and curtailed since 1926, in 1933 all union activities outside the co-ordinated state unions ( Sindicatos Nacionais ) were banned. The last successful strike in January 1934 triggered increased state repression. The now illegal CGT continued to be dominated by anarcho-syndicalists, but from then on it was in the process of dissolution and could hardly offer any resistance. The PCP, which was gaining ground in the underground and had also been banned since 1934, tried in vain to get its own activists into the state workers' organs. Until 1969 there can be no longer any significant trade union activity in Portugal, although a few smaller initiatives existed in the underground, mainly communist-oriented.
.jpg)
From 1970 until today
On October 1, 1970, a group of elected officials of illegal trade unions and unofficial groups within the unified union structure of the dictatorship founded the Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses (CGTP), Portuguese for "General Association of Portuguese Workers". They felt encouraged by some reforms carried out in 1969 by Salazar's successor Marcelo Caetano , who thus raised hopes that the regime would open up. The CGTP founders came from the fields of insurance, banking and trade, the metal industry, textile industry and merchant marine, as well as technical draftsmen, transport workers, drivers and others, all mainly from the greater Lisbon area. In 1970 and 1971 they made various fundamental decisions on issues such as weekly working hours, wages, freedom of assembly, internal democracy and the like. a.
However, the hopes of all opposition members were dispelled by the renewed harshness of the regime, above all by the increased activity of the secret police PIDE . As a result, the still illegal CGTP was unable to develop an initiative. With the end of the regime through the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974, the CGTP immediately began to appear in public and to organize. With Act No. 215-A / 1975, the CGTP was also formally legalized.
The CGTP now developed in the direction of a unified union, as an amalgamation of all unions in the country. It supported the government in the nationalization of key industries in 1975. From 1976 onwards, social-democratic and conservative-minded minorities within the CGTP increasingly came into conflict with the communist-oriented majority. They founded the Movimento Autónomo de Intervenção Sindical - Carta Aberta (German: Independent Trade Union Movement - Open Letter) platform , with which they advocated independent individual unions instead of a single union for all workers in Portugal.
After the 1976 constitution of Portugal established the principle of free trade union work, pluralism was also anchored in the trade union area with the reformulated Trade Union Act 1977 . At the CGTP Congress in the same year, it then came to a split. While the left wing of the socialist trade unionists, the Catholic trade union groups, and left trade unions remained in the CGTP along with the communist-oriented majority, those close to the Socialist Party and the conservative Social Democratic Party decided to form their own trade union federation, the UGT , founded in 1978 . From then on, the CGTP was called Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses - Intersindical Nacional (CGTP-IN) (German about: General Association of Portuguese Workers - National Union of Trade Unions).
The CGTP held its first congress on women's rights and full equality in 1978, and in November 1981 its own youth union, Juventude Trabalhadora , organized its first congress, particularly to campaign for an end to all child labor in Portugal.
In 1995 the CGPT-IN was awarded the Portuguese Order of Merit.
structure
offices
With 22 district offices ( Uniões distritais ) and five local offices ( Uniões locais ), the CGTP-IN is represented throughout continental Portugal, the Azores and Madeira .
management
After Manuel Carvalho da Silva was General Secretary of the CGTP-IN from 1986 to the end of 2011, this was Arménio Carlos since January 2012 . On 14./15. In February 2020, Isabel Camarinha became the first woman in Portuguese trade union history to be elected as the new general secretary.
Members
121 individual unions and some federations from across the country are organized in the CGTP-IN. With around 750,000 members (2010), the CGTP is the most important trade union confederation in Portugal.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.etuc.org ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 15, 2013
- ↑ www.ugt.pt ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 17, 2013
- ↑ Walther L. Bernecker, Horst Pietschmann: History of Portugal . CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 114
- ↑ António Henrique de Oliveira Marques : History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 385). Translated from the Portuguese by Michael von Killisch-Horn. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-38501-5 , p. 537, p. 558f
- ↑ www.cesp.net , accessed June 17, 2013
- ↑ www.eurofond.europa.eu ( Memento of the original dated September 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 15, 2013
- ↑ History website ( Memento of the original dated November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the UGT website (port.), accessed June 15, 2013
- ↑ entry in the Pathfinder , the online encyclopedia of Porto Editora , accessed on June 17, 2013
- ↑ www.cgtp.pt ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 125 kB), accessed on June 17, 2013
- ^ Marília Mendes: Congresso da Central Geral de Trabalhadores Portugueses - Continuidade e mudança . In: horizons . No. 2 . Verlagsgesellschaft work, Zurich March 2020, p. 4 .
- ↑ www.cgtp.pt ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 125 kB), accessed on June 17, 2013
- ^ Website of the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT , accessed on June 17, 2013
