The General Confederation of Workers (CGT Chile) is a union organization, independent and autonomous of all those powers and instruments that are born outside the decision of the working class, this leads to work without pauses to be able to respond to demands, concerns and claims that the workers expose, beyond the production area in which they can be inserted in their daily jobs.
We rigorously apply the principles of independence and autonomy in union work, based on the fact that workers are abused and exploited in their rights, the employer, in addition, every day steals the wealth that they generate with their hands and work tools, the workforce. Beyond the religious, political and/or social ideas and positions that the working class may embrace, the exploitation and abuse generated by Capital and the State affect all people and we must support them as a trade union organization.
We maintain that society is divided into 2 classes and that our place is in one of them, which is why we set out to generate the necessary processes for workers to acquire consciousness, class consciousness. This union organization develops its management under 3 clear and defined principles, as we believe that they are vital to create awareness in all people. Those principles are: EDUCATION –
ORGANIZATION - FIGHT. For us the basis of everything is Education, without it it is very difficult to advance to the following stages. If there is not a solid base of knowledge, the organizations that are created will be born with deficiencies and will be limited to advance in the fight for inalienable rights. Hence, Education is the main basis of our work.
When we were just born as an organization, this education was limited to preparing graphic material that is distributed among the workers, in addition to promoting internal communication media. But something was missing, until, in April 2000, as a result of an invitation sent to us by Radio Tierra, we had the opportunity to promote education through a radio signal, upon payment of a monthly fee, which unfortunately - after a few years - could not continue due to lack of resources.
Fortunately, our work caught the attention of some popular radio stations that invited us to broadcast our program on their airwaves - Radio Canelo de Nos, Encuentro in Peñalolén, Primero de Mayo in Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Villa Francia in Estación Central, popular radio in Quilicura.
The organization seeks support and training to set up an internet radio, so that we would be our own generators of educational lines, we would spread music with social content, in addition to receiving the support of various professionals who deliver guidelines of all kinds aimed at workers and their families.
Within this radio project currently, which we call RADIO LA VOZ DE LOS TRABAJADORES, is the radio program La Voz de los Trabajadores. A program that has been in force since April 2000, which has gone from daily to weekly, with jumps in its development mainly due to the lack of people who support us in the controls and dissemination of transmissions, despite its limitations, it is already standing on the 1,400 broadcasts and is heard by hundreds of workers throughout the country.
This is the CGT Chile radio project, a project that puts all the chips on the education of wage earners, because it is only this education that will allow the working class to open their eyes and understand that educated people can to organize, an organization that is installed and strengthened to finally go to the fight for their unsatisfied demands, in the union, political and social spheres.
MANUEL SMOKED LILLO
Director Responsible for Radio La Voz de los Trabajadores - CGT Chile