A-Infos (en) Catalunya, EMBAT: Who's who in the Catalan field? (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

When we see the convocations in the field, we can't help but notice the 
convening organizations. In certain territories of the Spanish state, 
the mobilizations are called by platforms linked to the extreme right. 
In other places they are convened by farmers' organizations of a more 
employer nature and in others they have a more popular and trade union 
nature. It is clear that the correlations are very different in each 
place, depending on the previous organization present in the rural 
world. ---- So one of our militants, Jose C., has made a map that will 
help us to place ourselves in the articulation of this primary sector so 
abandoned by the urban leftists that is now between the sword and the 
wall As we shall see, there is a considerable handful of agrarian 
organizations to consider.

To begin with, in the field there are entrepreneurs, self-employed and 
salaried women. The agricultural associations or unions are the 
organizations that bring together employers and self-employed workers, 
officially called Professional Agricultural Organizations (OPA). The 
employees are in the union organizations known to everyone: SAT (SOC), 
CCOO, UGT, CNT, CGT...

Context and recent history

With the Transition, the vertical union, in which both employers and 
workers were integrated, falls and emerges both the historical labor 
unions (UGT, CNT) and the newly created ones (CCOO, USOC, SOC, CSUT, 
SU...). In the countryside, the verticalist entrepreneurs created their 
organizations controlled by the UCD (CNJA and UFADE) and the Popular 
Alliance (CNAG), which would later be unified in 1989 creating ASAJA 
(Agrarian Association - Young Farmers). Apart from these, the so-called 
democratic "unions" emerged.

Of these democratic unions (or agrarian associations), some had already 
been operating underground since 1973, such as the Galician Farmers' 
Commissions, but the rest were established in later years; Union of 
Farmers in 1974; ENHE in Euskal Herria in 1976; Union of Farmers and 
Cattlemen of the Valencian Country in 1977; UPA in 1982 etc.

Union of Peasants is considered a continuation of the Union of Robbers 
of the Second Republic. It should be added that the Catalan agricultural 
employers' association "for life" was and is the Catalan Agricultural 
Institute of Sant Isidre founded in 1851 and a member organization of 
the employers' association Foment Nacional del Treball.

In 1977, the Coordinator of Farmers' and Ranchers' Organizations (COAG) 
was created at state level, bringing together the Union of Farmers and 
other provincial and/or regional associations. At the beginning the COAG 
was a confederation of organizations considered progressive and 
left-wing that acted independently, maintaining their autonomy or 
territorial sovereignty and some of these were attached to Via 
Campesina. Cayo Lara, from IU, was one of the founders. The COAG was 
considered a "class union" and maintained very fluid relations with PSOE 
and PCE, as did its Unions with the nationalist parties of their 
respective territories.

In 2008, the COAG made a centralist turn that some associations would 
not accept to understand that their sovereignty was ending and they 
would abandon it. Among these associations that left the COAG were the 
Union of Farmers, the Union of Farmers of the Valencian Country and the 
Union of Campesinos of Castilla y León. These three Unions will lead to 
the creation of the Union of Farmers and Ranchers Unions, with other 
unions such as Extremadura, Canary Islands, Madrid, Baix Guadalquivir, 
Asturias, Santander, Castilla-La Mancha... In Catalonia , when the UP 
left the COAG, the JARC (Young Farmers and Cattlemen of Catalonia) which 
was previously affiliated to ASAJA, would take its place.

In the agricultural sector, as in transport or hospitality and catering, 
small entrepreneurs and self-employed people are intermingled in the 
same associations, to the point that in Catalonia faced with the 
impotence of the "class" unions to negotiate a collective agreement of 
the countryside, the Union of Farmers was spoken to and it agreed to 
sign one. But the employer contested it, since the UP was a 
"self-employed union" and not a business organization, and the operation 
went bankrupt.

who is who

Normally UP has been an ally of CCOO and UGT, but this also creates 
internal problems for example due to the fruit harvest in Lleida. UP has 
lost a lot of influence in Lleida and between ASAJA and JARC they 
already surpass UP.

Unió de Pagesos already operates as an OPA (Professional Agricultural 
Organization) and therefore represents both the self-employed and small 
entrepreneurs, and signs collective agreements together with ASAJA and 
Sant Isidre. And it has become a company at the same time, by creating a 
farming services company called Agroxarxa, a company with which the CGT 
Trade Union Section has had several conflicts.

Separate mention should be made of the ever-rare relationship between 
self-employed and salaried employees. As we have seen previously, in 
agricultural associations entrepreneurs and self-employed people are 
mixed. Faced with this, in 1982 the UGT decided to try to organize the 
small owners and self-employed in the countryside and created the Union 
of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA), which would try to be a 
continuation of the Federation of Land Workers (FTT) before the war From 
1987, following the transfer of the Agrarian Chambers to the autonomies, 
the UPA began to function as an "independent" OPA, to be able to stand 
in the elections to the Agrarian Chambers, but it remains linked to the 
UGT through the its structure of self-employed workers of which the 
Union of Professionals and Self-employed Workers (UPTA) is also a part.

In Catalonia, the majority organization would be the UP, although in 
some territories it has been overtaken in representation by JARC and 
ASAJA. The results in the 2021 elections were, with a census of 20,609 
and a participation of 35.58%, 4061 votes in the Union of Farmers; JARC, 
2168; ASAJA, 821; and 190 the UPA.

Currently the signatories for the business part of the Agricultural 
Sector Agreement are the Union of Farmers of Catalonia, Young Farmers 
and Ranchers of Catalonia (JARC) and the Catalan Agricultural Institute 
of Sant Isidre (IACSI)

Speaking of agricultural associations, these, like the rest of society, 
since the Transition, have been abandoning left-wing positions and have 
focused more on the provision of services to their members, 
professionalism and training and business competence. Even so, excluding 
the low representativeness of the UPA-UGT, the more to the right or the 
more entrepreneurial the association is, the less representative the 
rural world in Catalonia gives it. The most representative is the Union 
of Farmers with 56.09% of the votes (4,061), followed by the JARC (COAG) 
with 29.94% (2,168), ASAJA 11.34% (821) and UPA the 2.62% (190)

In the last decade of the last century and the first of this one, the 
emergence of the Anti-Globalization Movement and the emergence of Via 
Campesina (1993), as an international movement that promotes ecological, 
sustainable agriculture and in favor of local production of food, 
adhering to the Spanish State the COAG, Unió de Pagesos, Sindicat 
Labrego Galego, Syndicat d'Obrers del Camp (SOC) and Euskal Herriko 
Nekazarien Elkartea (EHNE), and internationally the best known would be 
the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) of Brazil and the 
Confédération Paysanne of France, with José Bové as General Secretary 
and his spectacular actions against globalization and in defense of 
French agricultural products.

In Catalonia, this anti-globalization wave is reflected in the European 
Marches against Unemployment, the mobilizations against the visit of the 
World Bank and the fight against GMOs and for food sovereignty. This is 
how the Assemblea Pagesa was born in Catalonia as a grassroots trade 
union and social movement, assembly and through it We are what we sow. 
The Peasant Assembly arose in moments of great social unrest that also 
coincide with a process in the Peasants' Union, which is evolving from a 
combative trade unionism to a management trade unionism, represented by 
Joan Caball who succeeds the activist Pep Riera as Secretary General 
From Som el que Sembrem, accompanied by a hundred organizations, begins 
a fight against the cultivation of transgenic products and for food 
sovereignty, which with more or less activity reaches our days.

The Peasant Assembly is critical of the current mobilizations, as it 
considers that they seek to camouflage the inequalities and asymmetry 
between large agribusiness and farming by transmitting ultra-liberal and 
anti-ecological ideas. According to the Farmers' Assembly, the 
indebtedness of the peasantry comes from mutual competition and the 
constant growth overturned in a global capitalist market, the result of 
a model promoted by the EU, the states and the autonomous regions, and 
accepted by the majority unions.

In conclusion

The field is a complex contested space, just like the world of work in 
general. The current demands are still the result of the hardships of 
the moment, of the ultra-liberal offensive that invades us and the 
powerlessness of the left to fight it. The calls do not go to the root 
of the problem, but seek simple and quick solutions but with a very 
close expiry date. It is like asking for a salary increase of 2.5 
against a CPI that will rise by 5%.

But despite all its flaws, as in many, if not the vast majority, of 
labor mobilizations, the left must be present, support them and provide 
solutions. As Miquel Ramos said in an article in publico.es, "the 
absence of the left, which often invests more in analysis from the 
office than in feet on the street and in the field, is always taken 
advantage of by the right. Especially when there is fear and 
uncertainty." And "in the end, a legitimate protest against neoliberal 
measures that increasingly impoverish the working class ends up being an 
opportunity for the far-right, who are waiting for a misstep from the 
left, an ambiguous narrative or a distancing from the cause to present 
-se with magic formulas. These, far from solving the problem, always 
offer poisoned balms well wrapped in flags."

The countryside and the food system are key to society. We cannot turn 
our backs on the problem. Libertarian organizations have always been 
present in the field giving alternatives. Now more than ever our 
presence is needed.

https://embat.info/qui-es-qui-al-camp-catala/
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