ACI and the IWA ???

It is my understanding that no relations exist.

He's polish and gay.

???

ACI began as a development of the FESAL-E contacts. AFAIK FESAL is a European alternative education network, proposed by the italian Unicobas (with CNT-F-vignoles, CGT-E, SAC, SUD...). In Portugal there wasn't any libertarian Union [IWA section cannot be consider a proper union], so the group of people who were interested in FESAL began to meet and coordinate. So, ACI began to exist.

I don't know which kind of relatioships there're between ACI and IWA portuguese section.

Know your place WTY!

There are no oficial realtions between ACI and AIT-SP. Of course, as anarchist movemntent is so diminute in Portugal we all know each other and some of their members have atended demonstrations organised by us. They are also a small group and not a "proper union". You cannot find any "proper" indepent unions in Portugal outside CGTP and UGT (the two and only major unions conected to Communist Party and Socialist Party). As far as I know, the only relation to actual syndicalist practics that they have is because some of there members are (or were) in CGTP. We at AIT-SP are very suspicious of this people, as their are pure syndicalists, and quite reformists, and thy are quite against the orientation of IWA. Also, the main person behind ACI, Manuel Baptista tends to give an oversized idea of his groups and initiatives that normally doesn't correspond to reality. Some months ago he was announcing FESAL-Portugal had a students union in Coimbra when, in reality, this students just had contacted FESAL for information and were not insterested in entering. Also, some years ago, he gave an interview to SAC newspaper saying anarchists in Portugal had organised a 2000 anarchists mayday demonstration (for anyone who knows anarchism in Portugal this is ridicule, not even a 200 anarchist demo we could organise). So always be suspicious about what you hear from ACI.
For more information about Portugal contact AIT-SP.
Solidarity!

Hello

I'm a member of ACInterpro and I happend to come by this post.

Our website is www.acinterpro.org but at the moment it doesn't have any information in english. We are working on a new site that will have an english section.

We are indeed neutral regarding the IWA and are not affiliated with it.

Our project is to build a revolutionary union in Portugal. Last year we began the legal process and our statutes were published in the ministry of work paper, making us a legal and reckognied union. Unfortunally the portuguese state initated a legal action agaist us, and without proper legal counseling available to us we chose not to fight the action as it would be too costly.
Still we continue to organize ourselves, having recently created a eduction sector, and slowly more people enter our organization.

funny you mention the fact that the logo is old fashioned and maybe macho looking... I told the same thing to my comrades.

Thanks for you interest

Miguel Negrão

yeah thanks for the info Miguel!

That is a good question, one I asked myself sometime ago.

it is true that on the long run the objective is to end the state and construct a new socienty organized by itself in selfmanagement. But until that day comes we live in a state and have to act in it. Now if our action is made ilegal by the state that doesn't mean we will stop it, when strikes were illegal the unions made the stikes anyway, it was their weapon. But if we can do our work with more freedom, by virtue of not being illegal, and if that statue exists without limiting our action then i think we should work within the legal framework. That being said, if at certain situaion it arrises that a certain action we want to take, like occupying a factory, is illegal that shouldn't in any way stop us from doing it if we think is is a good stratagy. More concretly being a legalized union gives you immediattly certain "rights", like organizing meeting in the workplace, calling a strike, etc. It is true that it should be irrelevant if you are a legal union or not, in order to make a meeting or organize a strike, being a group of workers should suffice, but unfortunally that is not the case, and until we change that, it is fair easiear to work if we are a legal union.

I think the question here is of negative freedoms. The state prohibits by definition some freedoms, and something being legal makes it "ok" to do it in society, but first the state has to say that you can do it. Now the fact that the state says we have freedom of speech should not stop us from using freedom of speech, just because it was the state that said we could. We use freedom of speech because we want to. The same way just because we use the right to be a recognised union, doesn't mean we do it because the state allows it, we do it because it's our right, but if the state does allow it, it would be stupid not to use that right. If on the other hand the state didn't allow it , then we would certainly take the illegal route as the workers movements did in the 19th century. In fact at the moment we are probably not legalized and we continue our work as ever.

Miguel Negrão