Moviment obrer, canvi polític, social i cultural: Comissions Obreres a Catalunya, 1964-1978

Abstract

The first part of the thesis, Workers Movement, Political, Social and Cultural Change. Comissions Obreres in Catalonia, 1964-1978, deals with the birth of Comissions Obreres (CCOO), exposing the weakness of political parties who cannot control personal agreement among some of their members. Those people, despite the restrictions imposed by their respective political parties, will start in Catalonia the new workers movement after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Since its very launching Comissions Obreres will be marked by an important duality. On the one hand, the movement will spread and enlarge from relationship networks established upon contacts through vertical union membership and also through conflicts emerging during collective enterprise, industry and regional negotiations. On the other hand the movement will organize itself through coordinating committees gathering the politicized activists who will turn these organizations into debate centres, but also into constant disputes, thus reducing the effectiveness of undertaken actions. Oral sources have been an essential tool to carry out this thesis. On the first part they are crucial to understand some research work. On the second one they become the core of the subjects dealt with. Thus, for example, instead of considering that there is a gap between trade unionist generations from before and after the war, oral sources reveal the connection between them through family relationship and the meetings in the factories. Furthermore, oral sources allow us to know the deep personal and social transformation experienced by activists through workers affiliation. Women, more specially, will discover the feminist perspective from which they looked at the world. Finally, oral sources unveil a kind of disappointment among leaders of the workers movement for not being able of imposing a democratic society with a strong social component. The end of dictatorship cannot be understood without the collapse of vertical unions and without last years continuous controversies in Francos regime. Both aspects were the consequence of actions promoted by Comissions Obreres.