General Unión of Trabajadores

The General union of the workers ( General Unión of Trabajadores ) is a major Spanish trade-union confederation, affiliated with the Spanish working Socialist party (PSOE).

The UGT was founded on August 12th 1888 by Pablo Iglesias Posse in relation to the Marxian socialism in spite of its apolitical statutes. Until the 14th congress of 1920 it does not recognize the Class struggle like a basic principle of the class action suit. Although the forever established UGT formal unit with PSOE, this union broken forever since the foundation of the UGT, up to the point where to be member of the UGT supposes an affiliation with the PSOE and vice versa.

During the time of the First World War the followed UGT a tactical line of close relationship with the Spanish CNT and Communists. The advent of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera which founded a legal monopoly on the trade-union organization comes to stop this relation. Whereas the CNT chose radical confrontation with the mode, and was prohibited, the UGT, in spite of its dissensions with the dictatorship, adopted a collaborative attitude to continue to act legally. The toughening of the left during the period of the Second Spanish republic carried out by Francisco Largo Caballero, where the UGT exceeded 1 million members, and the bloody arrival of the Spanish Civil war reinforced the internal fractures. The departure of Largo Caballero of its position of secretary general of the UGT in 1937 was a sign.

Francisco Franco confined the UGT with the exile and clandestinity after its victory in the Spanish civil war until its death in 1975. The Union réémerga at the time of the democratic transition, as the communist trade unions Comisiones Obreras did it (CCOO). The UGT and the CCOO constitute from now on the two principal representations of the workers in Spain contemportaine, with the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) in third.

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