Nicolás Redondo: a union leader and socialist who contributed to the modernization of Spain

I am not going to be tempted to become a false historian, this is not the time.

Luckily we have two significant and important realities to get to know Nicolás Redondo more and better: 1) At the UGT and the Francisco Largo Caballero Foundation we have collected and published aspects and moments of

's history , his writings, speeches and documents through those who dedicated time and thought before putting their signature on them.

I encourage its reading and its evaluation by historians and researchers.

2) At the same time, we already have the second and already more complete Law of Democratic Memory that will allow us to continue remembering the people who had to do with the reconstruction of Democracy and the Social State of Law in and in the Spain we live in today.

As is the case of Nicolás Redondo.

I will try to write a few urgent lines from a woman's perspective, in times when there were few and fewer with union, political and social responsibilities.

Nico was self-taught, like most of the working class of his time, but he constantly read to learn more and also to enjoy those readings, he did it while he was in the car or in another means of transport, as if wanting to take advantage of those "down times". ”.

He also liked to listen, I think he read it in Pythagoras: "Listen and you will be wise, the beginning of wisdom is silence" and if he did not read it in Pythagoras, he read it in Valery: "Each atom of silence is the possibility of a ripe fruit."

It didn't stop Lo that it annoyed him when, according to him, we talked too much, and he gave you a look that you perfectly understood: "Better shut up, he's not interested in what you tell him."

He asked us not to stop dedicating efforts, in union training, to the history of the UGT so that the new affiliates would know our roots and our historical commitments.

I wish it would continue to be done now and constantly, because History needs to be deciphered and known in depth in order to learn positively from it.

A meeting of the Commission of Ten, which brought together the opposition to Francoism at the beginning of the Transition.

From left to right, Santiago Carrillo, Marcelino Camacho, Nicolás Redondo, Felipe González, Jordi Pujol, Antón Canyellas (hidden), Joaquín Satrústegui, Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, Valentín Paz Andrade, Julio Jáuregui, and Enrique Tierno Galván.

First meeting of the economic managers of the Government and majority unions (Workers Commissions and General Union of Workers) at the headquarters of the Economy in La Castellana.

In the image, Nicolás Redondo (on the left) and Marcelino Camacho (on the right). Joaquín Amestoy

Marcelino Camacho (right), general secretary of the CC OO, and Nicolás Redondo, general secretary of the UGT, led a demonstration against unemployment, in Bravo Murillo street in Madrid, in 1979.joaquín amestroy

Nicolás Redondo (second from the left) with Javier Solana (to his right, smoking a pipe), Enrique Múgica and Felipe González, at the 28th PSOE Congress.marisa flórez

The general secretary of the UGT, Nicolás Redondo (standing), speaks in plenary session of the Congress of Deputies with the general secretary of the PSOE, Felipe González, in the presence of Gregorio Peces Barba and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo (in the row below), in 1979.marisa flórez

Demonstration after the failed coup of 23-F with the slogan "For freedom, democracy and the Constitution".

From the left, Nicolás Redondo, Santiago Carrillo, Felipe González, Rafael Calvo Ortega, Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún, Manuel Fraga, and Marcelino Camacho. Ricardo Martín

From left to right, Marcelino Camacho, general secretary of CC OO;

Nicolás Redondo, general secretary of the UGT, and Carlos Ferrer Salat, president of the CEOE, at the signing of the Interconfederal Agreement for collective bargaining in 1983. raúl cancio

Nicolás Redondo, in a meeting with UGT delegates, in an undated image.Pepe Franco (Getty)

Nicolás Redondo, general secretary of the UGT, relies on the support of the seat in the debate on the motion of no confidence in the Government in the Congress of Deputies, in 1987.marisa flórez

From the left, Ramón Rubial, president of the PSOE;

Felipe González, General Secretary of the PSOE, and Nicolás Redondo, General Secretary of the UGT, sitting together in the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos in Madrid, before delivering their speeches, at the 31st PSOE Congress.

marisa florez

Image taken before the meeting of CC OO and UGT to analyze the general strike of 14-D.

From left to right, Antonio Gutiérrez, Nicolás Redondo, and Chema de la Parra.

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Redondo, in his UGT office, in 1989. César Lucas

The general secretary of the UGT, Nicolás Redondo (right), and the president of Izquierda Unida, Julio Anguita, shake hands in the presence of Nicolás Sartorius, in 1990.Bernardo Pérez

Nicolás Redondo (right) in celebration of Labor Day, in an undated image.Rafa Samano (Getty)

The general secretaries of the UGT, Nicolás Redondo (on the left), and of the CC OO, Antonio Gutiérrez, in the presentation of the acts of May Day 1990. Santos Cirilo

The general secretary of the UGT union addresses 5,000 union delegates from the UGT and CC OO, days before the general strike of 1994. ricardo gutiérrez

Cándido Méndez and Nicolás Redondo embrace, at the 36th UGT congress, in which Méndez succeeds Redondo in the union, in 1994. Nicolás Redondo

From the left, José María Aznar, Nicolás Redondo and Manuel Fraga, in the imposition of medals for 'Merit at Work'.

in 1996.gorka lejarcegi

Nicolás Redondo supports the electoral campaign of his son, Nicolás Redondo Terreros (on the left), candidate for lehendakari for the PSE-EE/PSOE, in 1998.gorka lejarcegi

Santiago Carrillo (on the left) and Nicolás Redondo, at the presentation of the PSOE campaign 'Freedom Proposal', in view of the elections in the Basque Country in 2001.gorka lejarcegi

The former general secretaries of the UGT, Nicolás Redondo (on the left), and of the CC OO, Marcelino Camacho, embrace after both receiving the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in 2001.efe

The former union leader, interviewed for EL PAÍS in 2007. Ricardo Gutiérrez

Institutional act in the Congress of Deputies to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the holding of the first democratic elections in Spain, in June 2007. In the photo, different personalities and deputies listen to the King's speech from the seats.

From left to right and from top to bottom: Pablo Castellano, former deputy of the PSOE;

Nicolás Redondo, ex-general secretary of the UGT;

Alonso Puerta, from PASOC;

Santiago Carrillo, former general secretary of the PCE;

Marcelino Camacho, former general secretary of CC OO;

Josefina Samper, wife of Marcelino Camacho;

Diego López Garrido, spokesman for the Socialist Parliamentary Group;

Joan Lerma, senator of the PSOE;

Julio Villarrubia, deputy of the PSOE;

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, President of the Government, and María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, First Vice President of the Government.gorka lejarcegi

Nicolás Redondo poses during an interview at his home in Portugalete (Bizkaia) in 2008. Santos Cirilo

Nico was a man of his time, but he was a more modern man than most men of his time.

As a union leader, his commitment to internationalism and Europeanism made it clear.

To all the general secretaries of the Federations of Industry, at that time we were twelve or thirteen, he demanded that we take care of relations with sister unions in other countries and with international sectorial ones.

He opted for a Europeanism of reason, he did not dream of fantastic and expensive institutions, he supported countries and their unions agreeing on different projects that would be useful for workers and European society in general.

He was a modernizer of collective bargaining and he watched the steps we took.

He asked us to make our union work more effective through negotiation and to dedicate efforts to homogenize working conditions and thus, we would strive to reduce the number of existing agreements to protect workers in small companies.

He always kept Article 7 of the Constitution in mind: "Workers' unions contribute to the defense and promotion of their own economic and social interests..." and that is why he opted for bipartite and tripartite agreement from the first moment of our democratic life.

He cared for business leaders with a lot of dialogue, following that Chinese saying that “everything is in order if the rod is not broken”.

Nico was paternalistic like most men and even more so in those days.

A protective paternalist, he did not stop supporting what we women in the UGT claimed.

Two sample examples.

In a Confederal Committee, which now I don't have time to look for its date, I presented a Declaration of support for the women of the PSOE and specifically for the socialist parliamentarians who were trying to push through the first Law of voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

Many union cadres began to ask for the floor to say that we should not get involved in those aubergines.

Once again I thought we were going to lose, they weren't listening to us, and then Nico spoke up and said: “the girl is right,

We got your support to change mentalities when we demanded the quotas so that there would be more women in the union leadership bodies and in all its structures.

Women at the negotiating tables of all kinds, in the union sections and in the company committees.

And it was not easy.

Before, and since 1977, we began a stage of national and international conferences of working women to carry out our specific union platform, until we had a specific union feminist work body, the Confederal Department of Working Women, which was approved in a Congress.

All this was supported by Nicolás and, sometimes, having to raise his voice to help or support us.

As you can see, he was a pioneer in difficult times.

Following Don Emilio Lledó when he wrote that in a democracy "there must not be an absolute leader, there must be leading ideas and honest people capable of carrying them out."

Nico, as we all called him, was a strong man of character who was not an absolute leader, who led ideas and democratically demanded that we make them come true.

Matilde Fernández Sanz

was general secretary of the Federation of Chemical and Energy Industries from 1977 to 1988.

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