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Redondo: The former leader of the General Union of Workers and a historical figure of Spanish trade unionism has died

Nicholas Redondo, former historical leader of one of the largest Spanish unions at the end of Franco’s dictatorship and the beginnings of the republic died yesterday, Tuesday, at the age of 95 in Madrid, the General Union of Workers (UGT), whose leader he served for many years, announced today.

Redondo was a form of trade unionism in Spain during the Frankish dictatorship, transition and democracy“, UGT said in a statement and relayed by the Athens News Agency.

For his part, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez paid tribute on Twitter to “an important figure in the history of our democracy” and “an example of the fight to advance workers’ rights and our welfare state.”

Born in 1927 in Baracaldo, in the Basque Country (northern Spain), into a family of workers, Redodo was general secretary of the UGT from 1976 to 1994, but was already a leader of the union in the illegality since 1971, under his dictatorship Franco (1939-1975).

A member of the UGT and the Socialist Party (PSOE) since 1945, he “had been arrested and persecuted by the Franco dictatorship many times because of his political and trade union activities,” the socialist-aligned UGT said.

The 1974, he refused to take over the leadership of the PSOE during the party’s congress, then illegal in Spain, in Sirene, France, leaving the seat for Felipe Gondaleth, who became prime minister in 1982.

But after the rise to power of the PSOE, he gradually began to distance himself from the government of Felipe Gondalethconsidering that it did not respond to the workers’ claims.

The break came in 1987, when he resigned from his seat as a socialist MP after voting against the draft state budget.

A year later, on December 14, 1988, together with the other major Spanish union, the Workers’ Committees (CC.OO, affiliated to the Communist Party), organized a general strike against the socialist government that paralyzed the country.

Redodo resigned from the leadership of the UGT and retired from politics and trade unionism in 1994.


Source: News Beast

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