LLOBREGAT
THE STRIKES IN After the struggle of the Seda workers during the past three months and the repeated general mobilizations throughout the Baix Liobregat region, the workers struggles now under way in the region constitute clear proof of the will of the workers to respond in struggle to the consequences of capitalist inflation and to fight to defend the jobs of militant workers who have been fired. (Since the beginning of the year, more than 500 have been fired in the province of Barcelona.) Causes of the struggle The struggle was launched lost May 21 by the 750 workers of the Elsa glass factory in Cornella. The initial demands, which were discussed in the course of several general assemblies of the workers, were these: immediate, equal wage increases of 5,000 pesetas a month for all; refusal to work on three successive Sundays a month; and negotiation of a new contract. The employers responded to the work stoppages by clearing out the factory on May 24 with the aid of the repressive forces, with the usual consequences of unemployment and ending of wages for the workers, and by firing two workers, one of whom was the secretary of the legal committee of the CNS. From that very moment, solidarity -- in many cases combined with the demand for a regional collective contract for the metal industry, which was rejected by the employers - began to spread throughout the region. At the Siemens plant the workers pooled their overtime wages to support the Elsa workers. Work stoppages, while they were of uneven duration, broke out repeatedly in succeeding days. Forgat, Faura, Pirelli, Clausor, Fenixbron, Soler Almiral, Guma, Serra, Tubos Bonna, Bardina, Dumper, Josala, Laforsa, Hules de Gava, Enaxa, Drim, Metalarte, Stok, Tperin, Nerwick, Eromso, Natacos, Germa, Plasmica, Brin, and so on for fifty factories! On June 1, during this wave of solidarity actiors, the 350 workers of Solvay, a chemical company in Martorell who last January had won an equal annual wage increase for all of 52,000 pesetos, entered into struggle anew, demanding both an odditional 3,000 pesetas a month increase in order to keep up with the high cost of living and the reintegration of fired workers. Here, as at Elsa, the employers responded with a lockout and, with the support of the goverment, concurrently forced sixty-three workers to keep working, under the pretext that they had to keep the ovens functioning to avoid the threat of an explosion. The workers of the Harry Walker factory in Sant Andreu de la Barca, who last January won an annual raise of 36,000 pesetas, also entered into struggle, first by organizing assemblies, then by stopping work in solidarity with Elsa and Solvay. They demanded a 4,000 poseta increase for all, a forty-hour work week, Integration of the highest-level bonuses into the base pay, and reintegration of three fired workers.
As we affirmed June 8 in a common declaration of the Barcelona Provincial Committee of the LCR-ETA(VI) and the Political Committee of the Bolshevik-Leninist Faction (a local organization that has since fused with the LCR-ETA(VI) -INFRECOR): "The struggle of the workers of Baix Liobregat, which has only just begun, has already obtained its finst results: reintegration of all fired workers except one at Elsa and a 2,400 peseta a month wage increase. But this time the workers of Elsa and of all Baix Llobregat want no layoffs. They have become conscious of their strength and want full satisfocfion of all their demands." And, as of this writing, the struggle is continuing. Organization and weaknesses Since the relationship of forces in Baix Llobregat is much less favorable to the workers than it is in the rest of Barcelona province, it could appear paradoxical at first glance that such a hard struggle as the one going on at Elsa should be led by the legal "trade-union" representatives, that the greater part of material solidarity should be channeled through the local section of the CNS in the Corella area, that many meetings should be held in the CNS headquarters and should also get the de facto agreement of a section of the bureaucracy of the verticle trade-union, that the legal representatives should have played a not negligible role in the struggle at Salvay, that a series of solidarity strikes should be decided on during assemblies of legal representatives, that these representatives should also go along with the demand for a regional collective contract in the metal industry. All this could appear paradoxical, but in fact it is not so parodoxical for those who know the composition of the Workers Commissions of the region, for those who are aware of the orientation they uphold. The predominant forces in the region are the Workers Commissions of sectors, " also known as Prensa Obrera (Workers Press), the name of the paper they publish. The dominant tendency in Prenso Obrera is the Bandera Rajo (Red Flag) group, a socialist organization of Christian origin. Side by side with Bandera Roja, with less but by no means negligible influence, we also find the Workers Commissions that follow the orientation of the Communist party. In spite of the fact that Bandera Raja includes the most combative sectors of the workers vanguard of the region, the perspective that the group presents differs little from that upheld by the CP in workers struggles, namely, utilization of legal representatives, negotiation of contracts, respect of "legal channels." This, in addition to the weak implantation in the region of organizations defending o class-struggle line, explains the fact that the majority of the workers sfill regard these methods as useful weapons for their struggles, as a valuable instrument in defending their demands, despite the foct that, of the beginning of the year when the Seda struggle was going on, militants of the Workers Commissions began to question the line being put forward by Bandera Rojo and the CP, a line that
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