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THE Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union today became the 12th to affiliate to the charity which honours the memory of British and Irish leftwingers who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Delegates gathered in Brighton for PCS’s annual conference unanimously backed a motion which called for Britain’s biggest civil servants’ union to forge official ties with the International Brigades Memorial Trust.
The 2001-founded organisation “keeps alive the memory and spirit of the 2,500 men and women who volunteered to defend democracy and fight fascism” during the 1936-1939 conflict, the motion said.
The bitter war, which was sparked by right-wing general Francisco Franco’s coup against the Spanish Republic, is estimated to have claimed the lives of at least 500,000 people.
The motion — moved by the union’s Ministry of Justice branch — was enthusiastically endorsed by several speakers, including Glasgow delegate Martin Gardner, who stressed the international brigades must remain a “living part of working-class history.”
He said: “We must remember what our class did and what it sacrificed to defend the simple idea of democracy, the Spanish Republic and the lives of millions of workers.”
