The historic UGT union leader, Nicolás Redondo Urbieta, has died this Wednesday in Madrid at the age of 95, without the causes of his death being revealed, as socialist leaders and the UGT union have lamented through numerous messages on social media.
UGT has announced the death of the one who was general secretary between 1976 and 1994 of the syndicate and has highlighted him as an “essential figure of trade unionism in Spain during the dictatorship, transition and democracy”.
The second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has indicated that Redondo leaves “behind a life dedicated to the defense of working people, freedoms and democracy.”
Likewise, he has said goodbye to an “extraordinary trade unionist to whom this country will always be grateful”, he added, transferring his condolences to the UGT family.
The PSOE has also sent all its “affection” to relatives and relatives for the death of a “socialist and man who dedicated his life to the fight for the rights of workers and citizens. May the earth be light to you, comrade ” , has published the formation in a message on Twitter, collected by Europa Press, along with two photographs of Redondo.
Along the same lines, the socialist candidate for the presidency of the Community of Madrid, Juan Lobato, has expressed himself, pointing to Nicolás Redondo as a “benchmark for the defense of the rights and dignity of workers” in the country.
Also the former socialist deputy for Madrid and UGT lawyer, Manuel de la Rocha, has lamented the death of the former general secretary of the UGT and “great worker leader, defender of the rights of workers and workers, a benchmark of Spanish socialism”.
For his part, the socialist mayor of Fuenlabrada, Javier Ayala, has received the sad news of the death of the trade unionist who has highlighted his “life dedicated to the defense of workers’ rights, a benchmark of trade unionism in our country”.
Nicolás Redondo Urbieta (Baracaldo, Vizcaya, 1927) was a historic Spanish unionist and politician. His father, Nicolás Redondo Blanco, a worker at the Altos Hornos, was already a member of the PSOE and the UGT in 1915, and after the Civil War he was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to 30 years in prison, of which he served six. in El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz).
At the age of ten, in 1937, he was evacuated along with other Basque children on the ship ‘Havana’ and taken to Bordeaux (France), where he was picked up by a mining family from Herault of Spanish origin, with whom he lived until 1940. Claimed by his family at the end of the Spanish Civil War, in 1940 he returned to the country. In 1942, he went to the Sestao Navy as an apprentice adjuster officer.
This metalworker joined the PSOE and the UGT in 1945. Thus began a very long union biography, which reached the front line in 1976. He was arrested and prosecuted by the Francisco Franco regime on numerous occasions (up to six times) due to their political and union activities. He was banished to Las Hurdes in 1967.
On April 18, 1976, he was elected general secretary of the UGT at the 30th Congress of the socialist trade union center. Two years earlier he had resigned to lead the PSOE at the Suresnes congress. He was elected deputy of the PSOE for Vizcaya in 1977, 1979, 1982 and 1986. In 1987 he resigned his seat after voting against the General State Budget (PGE) for 1988. He called together with the CCOO the general strike of December 14, 1988 and two more general strikes in June 1992 and January 1994.
On April 10, 1994, when his son Nicolás Redondo Terreros led the PSE-EE, in the 36th Congress, he gave way to Cándido Méndez as general secretary of the UGT and withdrew from all political and union activity.
