How strikes and collective action have shaped Barcelona history

As students and workers prepare for a general strike in support of Palestine on Wednesday, they join a long history of labor organizing in Catalonia. 

The October 15 strike has been planned for weeks, and comes after mass demonstrations in Barcelona against the Israeli interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla. It also follows another strike earlier this month, led by Catalonia's largest health worker union, to call for improved working conditions in the healthcare sector. 

Brendan von Briesen, researcher with the Labor, Institutions, and Gender research group at the University of Barcelona's Department of History and Archeology, provided context on how Catalan contemporary history has been shaped by union action.

Industrialization, anarchist roots, Francoist repression 

"Barcelona has a long history of industrial struggle," said von Briesen, explaining that journeymen guilds (composed of wage-earners, not masters) held influence in Catalonia even before Barcelona industrialized.

The city led the way in Spanish industrialization and became home to the country's first steam-powered factory, which would later be destroyed by Luddites during anti-clerical riots in 1835. The first general strike in Spanish history took place in Catalonia in 1855 and ended a period of labor repression that outlawed workers' associations.  

After a revolution overthrew the Spanish monarchy in September 1868, a period of political unrest and progressive reform followed. During these years, known as the Sexenio Democrático, workers' societies united to found the Spanish branch of the International Workingmen's Association, known today as the First International.

Also during this time, Italian anarchist Giuseppe Fanelli introduced Russian anarchist philosophy to the Spanish working classes. Anarchist ideology, rooted in the work of Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, would gain particular traction in Catalonia.

"This is the foundation of anarchism in Catalonia, which was probably the most important political philosophy up through the Spanish Civil War, when it was crushed," von Briesen said. Anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism became foundational political traditions in Barcelona, distinguishing the city from Madrid's ideological leanings toward socialism and communism. 

Spain remained neutral during World War I, which meant the country's working class maintained its size and organizing momentum after the war. The city experienced an important strike in 1918, largely led by women, thus garnering the name 'the Women's Revolt'.

The following year, the anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labor trade union (CNT) led a city-wide strike against the La Canadenca electricity factory in Barcelona. The strike would force the Spanish government to pass a law limiting the workday to eight hours, the first government in the world to do so. 

By the 1930s, Spain's labor movement was well-developed. In 1934, during the Second Spanish Republic, an uprising in opposition to the right-wing Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) party included a general strike and the short-lived proclamation of the Catalan state. A miners' insurrection in Asturias at the same time was crushed by future dictator Francisco Franco. 

Franco came to power in 1939, bringing a return to large-scale repression of independent organizing that would profoundly weaken the labor movement. 

But despite the regime's continued hold on power, unionism endured and began to re-emerge. Franco had remained relatively isolated from the international community until the early 1950s, when the U.S. opened economic relations with Spain largely in exchange for housing the U.S. 6th fleet in Barcelona. 

"It's during the second phase, the 'second Francoism' they call it, from 1959, when you start to see an opening up of the economy a little bit, and then also the resurgence of independent or left-wing trade unionism. But it's still clandestine," von Briesen said. 

After Franco's death in 1975, trade unions and student organizations rebuilt power and laid the foundations for future movements. In the decades since, Barcelona organizers have built on the city's revolutionary history and Catalan identity. 

Contemporary organizing 

"Catalanism has always been sort of an aggregate to the other demands," said von Briesen about Barcelona-based movements. "They tend to have a very Catalan expression in their protest movements. And I think that that could offer them a point of reference of solidarity with other peoples." 

Today's university students leading the pro-Palestine protest movement also grew up watching the Catalan independence movement of 2017 and its aftermath. 

"I think in a lot of ways that must have impacted their view of action in society," said von Briesen. Along with the Catalan tradition of solidarity, he also pointed to Barcelona's high degree of local organizing and civic participation in popular associations and cultural clubs as a potential catalyst for collective action. 

"Generally, Catalonia consistently shows between five and 7% higher union support than the national average," he said.  

Although over half of Catalans expressed confidence in trade unions in 2023, von Briesen explained that Catalan union participation is actually relatively low, as many workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements even without union membership. 

"I think that as much as Barcelona might have a reputation for labor militancy, I think a lot of that is sort of despite the way the unions are set up, as opposed to because of the way the unions are set up here," von Briesen said. 

Among the Catalan unions calling for total or partial work stoppages on Wednesday are the independentist La Intersindical, anarcho-syndicalist CNT, and the Catalan chapters of major Spanish trade unions CGT (General Confederation of Labour), CCOO (Workers' Commissions), and UGT (General Union of Workers). The strike is expected to cause major work stoppages across Spain.