23 May, 2011
On 13 May in Madrid, two great unions from the Spanish UGT confederation merged to form a new union, the 150,000-member FITAG-UGT, the UGT’s new union for food and industrial workers.
Dissolution congresses of the two predecessor unions, FTA-UGT for food and FIA-UGT for chemicals and industrial, preceded the founding congress, with delegates voting better than 97% in both congresses to go ahead with the merger. Antonio Deusa Pedrazo was elected General Secretary of FITAG-UGT. The new Executive is made up of 17 members, six of whom are women. Roughly 32% of the new union’s membership is women.
The union will negotiate 31 collective agreements in sectors that cover 10% of Spain’s total industrial base.
Mari Luz Rodriguez
The founding Congress made it clear that special attention will be given to sectors that are more difficult to organise such as ones containing small- and medium-sized companies. One focus will be immigrants who work in great numbers in some of the sectors that the new federation will represent.
Spanish Secretary of State for Employment, Gender and Youth, Mari Luz Rodriguez, spoke at the founding
Congress. She recognized the new union for its reinforced union structures and for defending the interests of workers.
FITAG-UGT also made it clear it was laying the foundation for facing the challenges that confront trade unions, both at national and international levels. Those include: to respond to globalization and fight neoliberalism; strengthen the union role and strengthen European Works Council roles in facing multinationals; to make the most of international trade unions; to demand and get more stable and secure employment with more rights; and to demand more appropriate social protections and defend the welfare state.
To meet these goals, FITAG-UGT resolved to organise more workers in all sectors that the new union serves, and to get more shop stewards to be present in all workplaces and to increase the union’s influence. The union believes better training, information, and structures will be put in place to achieve these goals.
ICEM affiliate FIA-UGT itself is a product of mergers in Spain’s labour movement. The former Chemical Workers’ Union first merged with UGT branches representing oil and gas workers and then merged again with branches of miners and textile workers.