National Workers Convention

The National Workers Convention (Convención Nacional de Trabajadores, or CNT) is a trade union umbrella organization that developed between 1964 and 1966, when its structure and program were approved. In terms of membership and years of existence, it has been the most successful Uruguayan trade union organization. Its major predecessors were the anarchist Federación Obrera Regional Uruguayana (Uruguayan Regional Labor Federation—FORU), the anarcho-syndicalist Unión Sindical Uruguaya (Uruguayan Union of Syndicates—USU), the Communist Confederación General del Trabajo del Uruguay (General Labor Confederation of Uruguay—CGTU), and the mostly Communist Unión General de Trabajadores (General Labor Union—UGT).

The CNT was established at a time of deepening social and economic problems and resulting demands for land reform, industrial planning, nationalization of key industries and the banking system, and substantial state intervention in housing, education, and social security. Following the 1973 coup d'état, the CNT was forced underground by President Juan María Bordaberry, but not before it confronted the dictatorship with a general strike that brought about the arrest, imprisonment, and exile of many union leaders.

In 1983 the regime permitted the creation of a coordinating committee, the Plenario Intersindical de Trabajadores (PIT), to prepare for a May Day demonstration. The 1984 congress of the PIT rebaptized the organization as the PIT-CNT, whose main concerns have been the recovery of real wages to predictatorship levels and the legal prosecution of human rights violations. The PIT-CNT has refused to join any of the continental trade union organizations. Its membership in 1992 was estimated at 200,000.

See alsoLabor Movements .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Héctor Rodríguez, Nuestros sindicatos, 1865–1965 (1965) and Unidad sindical y huelga general (1985).

Germán D'Elía, El movimiento sindical (1969).

Alfredo Errandonea and Daniel Costabile, Sindicato y sociedad en el Uruguay (1969).

Jorge Luis Lanzaro, Sindicatos y sistema político: Relaciones corporativas en el Uruguay, 1940–1985 (1986).

Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Alexander, Robert Jackson, and Eldon M. Parker. A History of Organized Labor in Uruguay and Paraguay. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005.

Giorgi, Alvaro de., Susana Dominzaín, and Lucía Sala de Touron. Respuestas sindicales en Chile y Uruguay bajo las dictaduras y en los inicios de la democratización. Montevideo: Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios Latinoamericanos, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de la República, Departamento de Publicaciones, 2000.

Mantero Alvarez, Ricardo. Historia del movimiento sindical uruguayo. Montevideo: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria: Asociación de Bancarios del Uruguay, 2003.

Porrini, Rodolfo. La nueva clase trabajadora uruguaya (1940–1950). Montevideo: Universidad de la República, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Departamento de Publicaciones, 2005.

Rodríguez Díaz, Universindo. El sindicalismo uruguayo: A 40 años del congreso de unificación. Montevideo: Taurus, 2006.

                                       Dieter Schonebohm

                                       Fernando Filgueira