Andalusian Workers' Union denounces massive repression

Marinaleda in the 1980s

The Andalusian Workers' Union (Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores, SAT) is maybe best known in its former incarnation of Rural Workers' Union (Sindicato de Obreros del Campo) and its greatest achievement: a mini-socialist republic in the heart of Andalusia: Marinaleda, where, by legal and noviolent means, all lands have been collectivized and housing has been made available for everybody: a true model draft of how the World may be when we finally get serious with this thing of the so much needed Revolution.

As the song said: Andalusia all, like Marinaleda... and not just Andalusia, the whole World must be that way.

Well, the case is that the force that made that and other maybe less impressive but not less hardly fought achievements possible, the SAT is being attacked by the state in what they describe the worst repression against workers' unions in many decades. 

The attacks come from three fronts simultaneously:

• The judiciary front, with hundreds of militants being brought to tribunals and imposed extremely hard penalties for nonviolent actions, that "nobody sane would even call a crime", such as booing politicians, occupying lands, banks, guvernamental offices...
• The political front, with the perennial "socialist" (neoliberal) government and the institutional unions UGT and CC.OO., who fear for their status, charging against the SAT. 
• The media front, or as they call it: Falsimedia, lying and defaming against the secretary general Diego Cañamero and Marinaleda's always re-elected mayor Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, as well as other members of the union.

In response the SAT has decided not to attend any more trials against its members, as they consider they are all framed beforehand. 

Source: La Haine[es]

See also:

• The New York Times: A job and no mortgage for all in a Spanish town
• Counterpunch: A town called Marinaleda