On the persecution of CNT-AIT

The name CNT-AIT has characterised the struggles of the Spanish proletariat for 116 years: it was the protagonist of the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 and survived the dictatorship of Franco. Today, in democratic Spain, the same slogan has been legally stripped from the one who wears it. The motivation is aberrant and worrying for the entire global trade union movement. CNT©CIT — which came out of AIT (IWA) in 2016 and promoter, in 2018, of a new international, CIT (ICL) — has registered as a trademark the CNT name, its logo and its flag, and on this basis has taken legal action against local and regional unions of CNT-AIT to prevent it the use, while claiming the ownership of historical places to take over their premises.

A first sentence has already affected 16 unions of CNT-AIT, forcing them to change their name and theme; other sentences are expected for the remaining anarcho-syndicalist federations. The comrades of anarcho-syndicalism have also been hit by heavy coercive fines, which reflect on the possibility of unionism, and other libertarian threats. An anarcho-syndicalist slogan that lets itself be protected by a trademark is an aberration that screams revenge: they challenge the lever of the State to name a name «private property» and to punish workers who dare to use it. Yesterday they were burning the property registers, today we sign up for the patent office and the © is appointing next to the red flag.

And in the name of what? Of a symbol that should live in the squares, on the walls, in the mouths of anyone who fights — not caged in a certificate, monitored by lawyers, defended against the blows of defide as if it were the mark of a soda. The motto of the libertarian syndicate reduced to a company logo: red flag laminated and registered, to be displayed in court.Those who fence a slogan fence an idea, and those who fence an idea have already betrayed anarcho-syndicalism - because they admitted, in practice, that without the policeman guarding them, they can't stand. They preach the abolition of the master and they go begging the state, origin of the authority of the master, the protection of their own name.

As Coordinamento Anarcosindicalista (Anarcho-syndicalist Coordination) we denounce the liberticide and authoritarian practice of CNT©CIT. We denounce and record how CIT’s Italian affiliate has also used, since its international membership, centralist and authoritarian practices, including the expulsion of some trade unions and the criminalization of realities that during the pandemic fought against obligations, suspension and expulsion from work and limitations of freedoms social imposed by the state.We don't think that the CIT is the way of unionising: to hit other workers, their struggles and their organizations, putting themselves under the accomplice and protective wing of the state apparatus, judicial and repressive always against the workers.

In reiterating the necessary coherence between means and ends in the practice of anyone fighting for a libertarian society, we claim our presence alongside the Spanish comrades of CNT-AIT, for a real and active solidarity, against every reactionary drawing that wants to cancel the anarcho-syndicalist model and practice, Their and our story yesterday and today's struggle.

Coordinamento Anarcosindicalista