Part 2, Chapter 1 : Transport

Part 2 - Collective Labor in the Various Sectors of the Economy

1. TRANSPORT

Two Confiscation Proclamations from the Catalonian Railroads—How our comrades seized the railroads and how they organized the transportation services—The Port of Barcelona—The Compañia Transátlantica—The work of the CNT has improved trolley service in Barcelona.

PROCLAMATION OF THE CONFISCATION OF THE RAILROADS OF CATALONIA

In the town of Manresa, on July twenty-fourth of the year nineteen hundred thirty-six, at a meeting of the trade union organizations of the National Federation of the Railroad Industry, affiliated with the National Confederation of Labor, and the National Railroad Trade Union, affiliated with the General Workers Union, which have hereby agreed, in the name of and representing the personnel of the Compañia General de Ferrocarriles Catalanes, for the Barcelona-Manresa, Martorell-Igualada, Manresa-Suria and Bordeta a Puerto lines, to unanimously ratify the decision to proceed to the practical and official confiscation of all the services and departments of the lines mentioned above, therefore assuming, immediately, complete responsibility for the administration, direction and normal operation of the services of the above-cited lines.

The parties hereto also agree to notify the Public Relations Committee of the FNIF and the Executive Committee of the 9th Zone of the SNF, as well as the Regional Anti-fascist Revolutionary Committee and the Government of the Generalitat, of all subsequent actions undertaken with regard to this matter.

(This is a copy of the original, which is duly signed and sealed by the respective organizations.)

THE CATALONIAN RAILROADS

CNT/UGT

To All Personnel

For the knowledge and satisfaction of all the comrades, we are pleased to reproduce below, in its entirety, the document which, for the purpose of confirming the confiscation of the former Compañia General de Ferrocarriles Catalanes, with the greatest guarantees of a legal nature, was signed and issued by us and by the Generalitat of Catalonia on July 27, 1936.

In the City of Barcelona, on the twenty-eighth of July in the year nineteen hundred thirty-six, the National Federation of the Railroad Industry, affiliated with the National Confederation of Labor, and the National Railroad Trade Union, affiliated with the General Workers Union, having confiscated all the equipment necessary for the operation of the lines of the Compañia General de Ferrocarriles Catalanes, i.e., the Barcelona, Martorell and Manresa line; the Manresa, Olván and Guardiola line; the Martorell to Igualada line; and the Manresa to Suria and Bordeta-Port line, as well as having assumed control over the provision of the corresponding services, with regard to both the technical as well as the administrative and commercial aspects, hereby notifies the Generalitat of Catalonia, which, upon having been notified, has no objection and accepts the fact of the confiscation on the following conditions:

A. An inventory will be drawn up for the equipment, both mobile as well as other kinds, that is necessary for the operation of the services mentioned above, and will be completed and formally presented within no more than ten days.
B. A financial accounting of the confiscated enterprise will be formulated showing its status as of the moment of confiscation, which will include all hard cash in safes and all additional items.
C. Everything that constitutes the assets of the lines mentioned above which is not included in the previous sections will be itemized in detail in a supplemental addendum.
D. The Generalitat of Catalonia, by accepting this confiscation, reserves the right to intervene in the confiscated enterprise in the following way:

The Generalitat of Catalonia will nominate a delegate from the Generalitat, whose mission will consist exclusively in inspecting the operations and the revenues which are obtained in any and all ways from said operations, for the essential purpose of assuring that said revenues are devoted to the maintenance of the wages of the personnel and the improvement of their working conditions, as well as to meet all the corresponding expenditures relating to operations and amortization, in the explicit understanding that among the latter the obligations corresponding to the former rights of the stockholders and creditors are nullified.

E. At the same time, the Generalitat of Catalonia recognizes the right of above mentioned trade union organizations to organize all the services, both technical and industrial as well as bureaucratic, in the way they deem most expedient, for the purpose of more efficient operations, and will have the right to eliminate or create jobs as they see fit, regardless of the category or level.
F. The Generalitat will furthermore, in order to contribute to the more efficient operation of the confiscated services, contribute such advice and counsel that it deems fitting with regard to the technical aspect, when its help is solicited.

And the record will show that this proclamation was made in triplicate, and was signed by the Honorable Minister of the Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia and by other representatives of the National Railroad Trade Union and by the National Federation of the Railroad Industry on the date first recited “ut supra”.

Signed:

FOR THE GENERALITAT OF CATALONIA: The Minister of the Government, José María España—FOR THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE RAILROAD INDUSTRY: Emiliano Martínez, Antonio Casanovas, Pedro Rius, José Pericas and Eduardo Casals—FOR THE NATIONAL RAILROAD TRADE UNION: Miguel Salvador, Isidro Medina, Pedro Corrons, Miguel Canals and Julio Guardiola.

Barcelona, July 31, 1936—The Directive Committee.

CNT-FAI BULLETIN

How our comrades took over the railroads and how they organized the rail services.

On Monday, July 21, the workers took over the lines of the M.Z.A. and the North; they formed Revolutionary Committees and organized the defense of the rail stations with guards armed with rifles and machine guns. In the M.Z.A. the comrades of the CNT-affiliated trade union were the first to arrive and confront the task of reorganizing the rail service. Nonetheless, the composition of the Revolutionary Committee of the station was equally divided between the CNT trade union and the UGT-affiliated trade union.

In the North as well it was the CNT-affiliated trade union that took the initiative to occupy the station, and later allotted the UGT-affiliated trade union equal representation on the Revolutionary Committee formed on that line. In the North they proceeded as follows:

By means of the railroad telegraph a message was sent to all the stations notifying them that the CNT trade union had taken over the enterprise. This notice was received everywhere with satisfaction. A CNT Station Committee was elected, and the Police and all other staff members put themselves at its service.

On Tuesday the UGT members arrived, and assumed their positions on the Committee, which was composed of six comrades, three from each organization, and two liaison members, one for each trade union.

They proceeded to nominate by means of a circular, ratifying the orders transmitted during the first few hours, revolutionary Subcommittees in the most important stations: Sabadell, Tarrasa, Manresa, Granollers, Vich and Ripoll. Relations were established with Lerida, where the comrades had formed a Committee.

The Revolutionary Station Committee directly assumed responsibility for organizing labor and administrating the enterprise. The fires of the Civil War were raging in Spain, and the first measure that was adopted with regard to labor organization was to armor two engines and two cars in the workshops of San Andrés. The workers labored with enormous celerity. The workers gave a demonstration of their enthusiasm, and two days later this job was finished. These two engines, with their two cars, were used by the first column to leave for the Aragon front. Both engines remained in the service of the column that is operating near Huesca. The initiative for and the implementation of this achievement was entirely due to the efforts of the CNT.

All the managers of the service departments were dismissed, and were informed that they should not show up for work until further notice.

On the San Juan line a small reconnaissance train was dispatched from Vich to Ripoll and another from Vich to La Franquesa.

At the request of the Committee of Militias a hospital train was organized with boxcars, in which electrical equipment was installed and on which large red crosses were emblazoned. Operating rooms were built inside the boxcars. In the other cars, four beds were installed in each car. The train was composed of seven cars. A huge Red Cross was painted on the front of the train. The medical personnel who were assigned to the train were so satisfied that they delayed the departure of the train until government representatives arrived, who were summoned for the purpose of making them appreciate the voluntary labor of the workers.

The following Service Committees were formed:

Workshop Committee.
Committee for Fuel and Engines.
Committee of Train Personnel.
Tracks and Repair Committee.
Exploration Committee.
Machinists Committee.

These Service Committees held daily meetings attended by one delegate from each Committee and one delegate from the Revolutionary Committee.

A Control Commission was elected, which investigated the official and private papers of the managerial staff. In accordance with the results of this investigation, the managerial staff was dismissed from the services. Meanwhile, many of them offered to collaborate as technical advisers with the Service Committees.

One of the responsibilities of the Revolutionary Station Committee was to organize a unit of guards for the protection and surveillance of the station. This task was scrupulously and cautiously carried out, and the station was renovated and a kitchen for the guard unit was installed. An important and urgent task was to examine the goods that had piled up in the boxcars that had been detained because of the fascist revolt and the general strike. Those goods that were perishable or subject to rust or damage were taken out of the boxcars and placed under the control of the Supply Committee.

After having attended to these urgent services, in compliance with the resolution of the confederal organization to return to normal, partial service was restored. First Barcelona-Manresa, which was then extended to Lerida.

Rigorous control was exercised over travelers, who were not allowed to travel with more than 200 pesetas in their possession.

Later, service was partially restored to the Barcelona-San Juan de las Abadesas line. Gradually, service was extended until the trains ran normally within the territory where the fascist insurrection had been defeated. Outside this territory the trains did not run. Trains carrying people and goods ran to Tardienta, that is, to the point where the antifascist columns are posted. The financial situation of the enterprise can be considered to be generally good, despite the hardly propitious situation for normal rail traffic. However, it is not possible at the present time to concretely ascertain the precise time of arrivals and departures. Proposals for immediate and future implementation will be studied by the assemblies of the respective trade union organizations. Meanwhile, the same level of wages and the same hours are maintained as were current before the Civil War.

The morale of the personnel could not be better for the prospect of undertaking collectivized economic reconstruction.

THE PORT OF BARCELONA

The new working conditions that resulted from the recent events that transformed the City of Barcelona have also affected the operations of the Port. Middlemen, who constituted a parasitic plague that grew fat on the toil of the workers, have been suppressed. These middlemen contracted the loading and unloading of ships, reserving for themselves, naturally, the lion’s share of the money received from the ship-owners, the shipping agents and the consignees. The middlemen organized teams of workers. To provide some idea of the profits made by this useless pest, one need only note that in the cotton and egg markets, commodities that pay the highest rates for longshoremen, their profits reached 200 pesetas per day per team. The team included eleven men on board and five on shore. In some ships, four or five of these teams were organized. This means that, on these occasions, the profit they pocketed, without any other work than that of contracting the personnel, approached one thousand pesetas per day.

This is the parasitic category that has just been eliminated from the Port of Barcelona in order to clear the way for a direct contract between the ship-owners, shipping agents and consignees. Nor should the recognition of the rights of the latter be considered as a concession to capitalism, but rather as a result of the material impossibility for the trade union to deal directly with the export firms that have their offices in other cities in Spain and other nations. The consignee, for example, is the representative in the Port of Barcelona of foreign enterprises and one must come to an understanding with him. Now, however, it is the trade union that contracts the labor rather than the middlemen who made this contract the instrument of a veritable act of highway robbery.

The Administrative Committee will establish the charges for loading and unloading in accordance with the prevailing rates, organize the teams of workers and pay them their wages. The ship-owners, shipping agents and consignees do not recognize any other institution than that of the Transport Union of the CNT. As a result, the Confederation, besides participating in a major leap forward towards the socialization of wealth, imposes its control in an absolute manner.

In the contract entered into by the representatives of the ship-owners and the consignees with the Trade Union, the following points are set forth among others:

1. The ship-owners, shipping agents and consignees who sign below undertake that, in effecting every kind of operation related to loading, unloading, packing and unpacking of ships, as well as the delivery of the commodities to the receiver and the reception of the same for their shipment, they will recognize exclusively and solely the workers of the Transport Workers Union, of the Port Section, Onboard Subsection, in accordance with the wage rates that currently prevail, approved by the Chamber of Trade and Shipping, including in the expressed rates the quantities that make reference to Articles 4 and 9 below.
2. First, an Administrative Committee will be elected, which will be responsible for examining and inspecting the final accounting of the cargo, precisely at the conclusion of each operation, which each consignee will obliged to send to the Committee.
3. Before beginning work onboard or any other kind of operation, the consignee will be obliged to send to the Administrative Committee a copy of the consignment certificate or cargo manifest, and in the latter case an itemized list of the cargo.
4. It is agreed that for the purposes of providing for a fund for disability and accident insurance for the workers, fifty centímos per ton will be assessed for all categories of commodities and every kind of cargo.
5. With regard to the payments stipulated for unemployment insurance, they will continue to be collected at the rate of forty and seventy-five centímos per ton, depending on the type of goods, in accordance with the agreement of July 7, 1936.

The document contains 19 long Articles. Among other things, a working day of seven hours is established, extending from eight a.m. to noon and then from two p.m. to five p.m. Overtime is not authorized.

This collective contract will make it easy to assess the traffic in the Port of Barcelona: entry and departure of ships, the weight and kinds of goods, etc., since control is now entirely in the hands of the Transport Trade Union.

THE COMPAÑÍA TRANSATLÁNTICA

The Compañía Transatlántica, which was once one of the most powerful shipping companies in Spain and the world, has over the last few years lost its dominant position in maritime shipping, because the government had cut back on its subsidies, reducing them to a minimum. The precarious situation in which the company found itself on July 18 encouraged its workers to take over the services of its Barcelona branch. On July 27 the employes of the maritime agencies affiliated with the UGT arrived at the company offices and notified the Generalitat that they were confiscating the company.

The major economic difficulties encountered by the workers led them to conceive of the benefits that would accrue to them if the confiscation was transformed into control, when the comrades of the CNT arrived to participate in the Committees.

The Central Committee was formed in the following manner: three comrades from the CNT (sailors, machinists and assistants); two from the UGT (maritime agencies); one assistant from the UGT, and two delegates from the Generalitat, one from Madrid and one from Barcelona.

The Committee is responsible for organization and administration (excluding the official delegates) and is in charge of the overall direction of the enterprise.

Once the funds were counted, they found 63,000 pesetas in safes and other small quantities in the form of foreign currencies.

In the local banks the company had a balance of one million eight hundred thousand pesetas, of which approximately one million had already been withdrawn to pay current and future payroll obligations to subcontractors, such as Vulcano and Maquinista. There is also a remainder, also in the banks, of 1,700,000 pesetas, deposited at a fixed rate of interest, whose terms vary from one to three months.

The company currently has six ships in active service, with a total tonnage of approximately 100,000 tons. None of these ships have been seized by the fascist forces.

At the time when the organization agreed to return to work, the Committees were busy trying to bring the operations of the company back to normal. For this purpose, they prepared the “Comillas” for a voyage to Central America and the “Habana” for a voyage to New York.

Later, the Committee of Militias agreed to equip the “Comillas” as a hospital ship. Once the necessary renovations had been completed, the ship set sail on the 8th for Mahon in order to transport medical personnel and stand ready to take casualties from the attack on Mallorca, when it takes place.

The Compañía Transatlántica never excluded from its ships either the clergy or religious displays. It was ready, immediately after it was confiscated, to clear its ships of all priests, whose wages were paid up to the 18th, and then fired; this agreement was accomplished with the mediation of the ships’ captains.

Among the personnel who had ceased to perform services for the company were the following: Monturiol, who earned 47,700 pesetas a year, managing administrator; Ferrer, who made 32,850 pesetas a year, assistant administrator; Galilea, making 13,500 pesetas a year, secretary; Serra, earning 16,875 pesetas a year, accountant; García Luis, 13,500 pesetas a year, vice-secretary; Pérez Carpio, 5,040 pesetas a year, secretary for Güell, who never showed up for work.

In addition to the proposal to fire the entire Administrative Council, there was also the Commission composed of members of this Council, who had large incomes from salaries and commissions. The total amount of money saved up to the present day is 262,300 pesetas a year.

The rest of the employes have stayed on the job at their previous pay rates and conditions of work, except for the managerial role, which has become that of the technical adviser, without any other executive power besides what he implements on behalf of the Committees. As is the case in the other confiscated or controlled enterprises, the technical personnel has without exception offered to collaborate with the workers who have risen to become the rulers of the economy.

Because 400,000 pesetas must be raised this month in order to pay maritime insurance on the ships, the Central Committee has requested financial assistance from Madrid. The Director of the Department of Maritime Trade has responded with evasive answers to the repeated requests of the committees and, finally, has notified the committees, in order to assert his power, that the offices of the shipping companies in the capital of the Republic must be placed under the control of the Alliance of Maritime Federations. Furthermore, the Government has appointed a socialist deputy as director of the Company. The Committee deliberated concerning a proposal to send a commission to Valencia (to represent it) for the purpose of seeking a satisfactory solution to this problem, which prevents the normal operation of the shipping operations, since, according to claims made by a comrade of the Committee, they will not dare to allow the departure of a ship without first paying the insurance premium, since in case of accident they would not be able to pay off the pensions to the families of the victims that the sinking of one of their ships might cause, and that they would not dare to run the risk of assuming this responsibility.

As much as possible given the situation, since the civil war requires the Committee to transfer some of its ships to war service, such as the “Uruguay” and the “Argentina” as prison ships, and the “Comillas” as a hospital ship, etc., the workers of Transatlántica will seek to normalize the shipping operations as soon as possible.

The personnel dismissed by the company as a result of the social conflict are returning to the extent that the services require them, as well as those personnel who, due to their incompatibility with the directive Councils, had been fired.

Between 70 and 80 percent of the workers employed by the company belong to our CNT. The old onboard committees will continue to perform their functions as technical committees, subordinated to the Central Committee. There is a proposal to hold a general assembly in order to vote on referendums or change the composition of the Committees.

The monthly payroll rose to approximately 450,000 pesetas. An exact figure cannot be provided, since the captains of the ships have budgets that rise or fall according to the ports of call and how long they must stay in each port.

Next month they must attend to the results of the examination that will be carried out in Madrid by the commission that we have mentioned, for the purpose of requesting the assistance of the Government and the Alliance of Maritime Federations.

One of the tasks that has been undertaken and which will take a great deal of work, especially metallurgical and carpentry work, is that of sanitizing the crews’ living compartments, which up to this time has not been completed despite all the protests and strikes of the workers.

The hours of labor in the Port of Barcelona have been reduced to 40 hours a week. This is not true of the hours worked on the ships, where the personnel have not wanted to reduce it and by unanimous consent work 48 hours a week. So, too, has a study concerning wage increases been put on hold, and the workers have not received a wage increase, not even the 15 percent promised them by the decree of the Generalitat.

THE WORK OF THE CNT HAS IMPROVED TROLLEY SERVICE IN BARCELONA

With arms in hand

On the morning of July 24, when the people defended their most cherished ideals in the streets of Barcelona with arms in hand, various comrades of the CNT temporarily abandoned their front line posts, in obedience to an order issued by the Organization, and traveled in an armored truck to the offices of the Streetcar Company, where they confiscated the industry in compliance with a resolution of the Transport Workers Trade Union.

Gunfire was still echoing in the streets, as the prelude to a dawn of liberty, when our comrades, who were unaware of what kind of people and how many of them they would find in the building harboring the offices of the company, arrived at the company headquarters. There they found a corporal of the Civil Guard and four privates, for whom it sufficed to demonstrate a serious and unanimous attitude on the part of our comrades in order to cause them to discretely withdraw from the building.

Minutes later, on the ground floor of the building, with the sumptuous offices of the now-fugitive Administrative Council, the workers of the CNT encountered the arena where they could develop their intelligence and their initiatives at the service of a revolution that had just begun.

An act of humanity

Upon searching the offices our comrades found a fascist lawyer in one of them, the only remaining member of the former Administrative Council. More dead than alive, this unhappy attorney maintained that he was unaware of the whereabouts of the other members of the Council. Stuttering with fear he could barely say that they had left him alone and without any orders of any kind, and then our comrades, possessing that humanity and decency that was later repaid with the barbaric brutality of soulless officers, authorized him to leave, although the profession of lawyer has been one of the most harmful to the cause of the working class.

There is no money—High salaries and slush funds

Once the confiscation committee had arrived at the Accounting Department, it found that there was no money there. Why not? This was easy to discover. A few days before the enterprise was confiscated the magnates who presided over the company’s operations had made off with amounts of money that they thought were sufficient. One named Nadal, 32,000 pesetas; one named Veiga, 28,000; Victor Mesa, the president of the Administrative Council, 35,000…. And so on in an endless list that was found in the account books. Other account books and many documents later presented obvious proofs that this unscrupulous gang that made up the Directive Council had given themselves unbelievable salaries. The director earned 11,000 pesetas a month, and his henchmen were not far behind. All of them supplemented their salaries with constant withdrawals from the fund for secret expenditures.

In the documentation pertaining to this account they found entries for lavish banquets, notations of amounts paid to police and informers to imprison and assassinate workers and other details that evinced the extensive immorality that guided the actions of the former directors.

Broken equipment, the cause of serious accidents

All of our readers will remember, of course. The condition of the rails in that period was, quite simply, lamentable. Many of them were broken, so that one cannot understand how serious catastrophes did not occur on a daily basis. The General Repair Shops had been stripped of all their best machinery; the streetcars were often inoperable and many of them did not even have motors, and the spare parts to repair them were of such low quality that a brief examination was capable of discovering the cause of so many accidents and crashes that took place every day. There was only one bright spot: the offices of the executives, in which fantastic luxury made it obvious that these departments were used more for relaxation and recreation than practical work.

The CNT begins to take action—Difficulties overcome

This mess had to be fixed and streetcar service had to resume. In addition to the equipment problems there was the fact that the revolution had raised numerous barricades on the streets of Barcelona, which rendered the railways unusable and had also knocked down many of the poles supporting the elevated power lines. It also appeared that these lines had been cut in various places throughout the city.

The workers of the CNT, however, were not at all daunted by the prospect of such intensive hard work. They put their faith in their ideals and set their minds on the achievement of this goal, and began to spontaneously volunteer every day to repair the damage. There were no set hours of work, or fixed roles, or specific job descriptions. All the workers laboring together uninterruptedly demonstrated in just a few hours to the people of Barcelona, Spain and the whole world, that the workers are capable of running their own affairs without despotic bosses or club-wielding foremen.

Only three days after its confiscation by the workers, the people of Barcelona expressed their gratitude to the workers when they saw the first streetcars running through the city.

Improved service and fare reductions

“And today,” we asked a comrade from the Control Committee, “has the service improved?”

“The service,” he told us, “has improved by 25%.”

“And have you been able to reduce fares for some of the routes?”

“On lines 37 and 38 the fares have been reduced by 40%. And the night surcharge has been abolished, which increased the price of a ticket by five centimes, and a study is currently being conducted regarding a general fare reduction that would allow the creation of a discount ticket for workers, valid from four to eight in the morning, and from six to eight in the evening. A study is also underway on the possibility of a standard ticket price or a 40% reduction in the ordinary fare.”

The wages of the workers of the collectivized enterprise

We continued to gather information, thanks to the friendly assistance of our comrade from the Control Committee.

“Have the wages of the workers been increased?”

“The wages of the lowest-paid workers have risen by 35%, and for the workers in the higher income brackets, their wages have been increased by 20%, 15% and 10%.”

“Has there been an increase in income for the streetcar enterprise?”

“Income has increased by 25%, and production has increased by 200%.”

“What future projects are planned?”

“We are currently engaged in the complete renovation of all the rails that are in bad condition. Furthermore, because our work never ends, since there are new horizons opening on the job, plans are currently being reviewed to expand the urban streetcar network, to the benefit of the railways, the organization and the people in general. We are also studying—and this will be the cornerstone of our work, for now—the implementation of a standard fare in the city. We are counting on major advantages for the realization of our plans, one of which—the most important one—is that all the workers of the collective are conscious of the transformation that is underway and are willing to work as hard as they can, because they know that it will benefit them. The mission of the Control Committee is the provision of efficient service and the lowest possible fares, and to do so in the most practical way possible.”

“What about the kinds of cars you are using?”

“Now there are eight different kinds on the routes; but we want to use just one. To do this it has been necessary to overcome difficulties with regard to the importation of foreign equipment. Before, we imported 85% of our equipment, but now, because we have discovered Spanish sources for these materials, we only import 10% or 15% of our equipment.”

“Has there been an increase in the numbers of workers employed on the streetcars?”

“When we seized the industry, there were 3,100 workers; today, there are 3,800. These 700 new coworkers have the same rights and the same duties as the other workers.”

“What about the administrative apparatus?”

“It has been streamlined, and we are now obtaining the maximum efficiency of labor from the technical and office personnel thanks to this streamlining, now that the bureaucratic luxury has disappeared. No one has been fired. When we took over the industry, we called a meeting of the entire technical and administrative staff and told them that anything they were willing to do to assist us in our work would be received with open arms and that they could retain their former jobs. All of them responded admirably to our appeal, and today,” our informant concluded, “without any obstacles or clouds on the horizon, we advance towards the realization of our aspirations, which are those of the organization and therefore those of the people.”