Apuntes sobre la ORT: de las Comisiones Obreras al Sindicato Unitario

In democratic Spain the system that has been established revolves around two big labor unions: UGT and CCOO. This situation comes from the years of the Spanish Transition, when other labor union proposals ended up disappearing or having a minimal significance. That is what happened, for instance, with the “Sindicato Unitario” (SU)(Unitarian labor union) promoted by the “Organización Revolucionaria de Trabajadores” (ORT) (revolutionary workers organization). In this paper we will analyze: its background, that is, ORT participation in CCOO; its origin since the split of ORT and “Partido del Trabajo de España” (PTE) (Spanish Labor Party) with the above mentioned CCOO; and finally its development during the Spanish Transition. We will take into account the fact that the ORT was a model of the Marxist “new left wing” that appeared during the late years of Franco’s Regime, and then its analysis may help to understand the behavior of radical communists labor unions during the transition from dictatorship to democracy.