Criteris de correcció del FORUM

Questions:

1. Who were Sagasta and Canovas? Do you think they were right?
   They were the leaders of the “Dynastic” parties, both parties took turns in power and all parties were excluded  from the political system.
   They were bourgeois right parties and, as you can read in the text, they defended the bourgeois interests and they opposed to the worker’s demands . They were against AIT, the most important worker’s association.
   
   
2. What di workers do to change the way they worked or lived? What alternatives to violence were open to them?
   The industrial working class was concentrated in Catalonia, the Basque country and Madrid.   
   
   They created trade unions. These unions often started as "friendly societies" that collected dues from workers and extended aid during illness or unemployment.  Soon, however, they became organizations for winning improvements by collective bargaining and strikes.
   
   Workers couldn’t do much about these job conditions at first, they didn't have the right to vote and they couldn’t change the laws. Some of the first actions (the protests movements) were associated with Ned Ludd, called luddites, they destroyed the machines because they felt they were putting their jobs and way of life in danger.
   This movement, which started in Britain, appeared also in Catalonia. One of their main actions was to burn the Bonaplata factory in 1835, one of the main factories in Barcelona at that time.
   
   Alternatives:
   Many people felt threatened by industrial change, particularly when it seemed to affect their jobs or their income or both.
   
   There were few alternatives to violence for workers in the beginning. As you can read in source 2,  Sagasta and Cánovas  were against any kind of association and workers needed to associate to be able to change their worker conditions. The leaders of the two dynastic parties that shared governments thought that A.I.T was a dangerous association for wealthy people.
   Workers tried to create associations from the beginning, but they were prohibited and outlawed, the popular classes were repressed but they continued fighting for the right of association and the right to vote.
   It wasn’t until 1910 that the first  parliamentary worker arrived to the Spanish Parliament, he was Pablo Iglesias, the PSOE leader..
   
   
3. What about working conditions in the 21st century, are they better or worse if you compare them with those of the 19th century?
   Free answer: students can explain their opinions about Spain,the social or economical crisis or about poor countries, but we have to point out our responsibility when we buy very cheap things in the “Tot a 1euro”. Who do we think is working for this salary in the world?

 4.- Brexit: Lo que ha hecho Theresa May escandalizará a nuevas generaciones de británicos. Se ha dirigido a la clase trabajadora británica, a la que muchos otros obreros del mundo le deben grandes cosas, para intentar ponerles en contra de otros trabajadores. Se ha dirigido a “the ordinary working-class people” para decirles, en un lenguaje con engañosas resonancias del viejo laborismo, que comprende su enfado con los “ricos y poderosos” y a continuación, ha intentado enfrentarlos con “la gente común de la clase trabajadora” que vive en la puerta de al lado. Esto no tiene que ver con el Brexit. Esto es otra cosa. Más grave.

HUMAN RIGHTS and populism- link-

Dictionary