Social movements

The economic changes of the first half of the twentieth century produced another change
in Colombian society: the emergence of urban and rural workers. This new social actor,
gradually began to organize and participate in the country's politics.

Craftsmen and workers' organizations

Although in the early twentieth century many industries were created, the number of
workers facing artisans was quite low. Therefore, the craftsman, a skilled manual worker
and owner of his workshop or workplace, was the main responsible for directing the
struggles and social movements during the first two decades of the twentieth century. To
this end, the craftsmen were organized with the workers and founded associations such
as the Union of Industrial and Workers in 1904 and the Colombian Workers' Union in
1913. Through these organizations, artisans organizational and transmitted them to the
workers fighting tradition. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the
number of workers rose against craftsmen. This made the workers relieved artisans in
the direction of struggles and social movements. And workers 'associations emerged as
the Workers' Party in 1916 and the Workers Assembly in 1919.

Features of laborers
During the first half of the twentieth century, the workers were employees who worked in
the coffee processing, food processing, textiles, crops of bananas, oil and transport
sector. From the beginning, the working class was composed of women, since they were
the most engaged in the textile industry.

The revolutionary workers

The first worker-craft organizations did not have a socialist or revolutionary character,
usually seeking the improvement of their living conditions. But this situation changed in
the twenties when the workers began to meet socialist ideas, anarchists, Marxists and
Bolsheviks. From this moment, the proletariat arose the need to create both trade unions
and political parties and socialist revolutionary trend, which defend their interests
exclusively. Thus, in 1925, the National Workers' Confederation was founded, and, in
1926, its political arm the Revolutionary Socialist Party PSR. By 1929, the PSR allied with
radical sector of liberalism to attempt the first socialist revolution in Colombia, which
failed. This caused a crisis within the PSR from which emerge the Colombian Communist
Party (PCC).

Workers central unit.

After the failed experience of the NOC and the PSR, the working class saw the need to
form a core of workers who agglutinate the largest number of unions in the country.
Harnessing the reform momentum of the Lopez and labor law issued by him, workers of
liberalism and PCC formed in 1938 the Confederation of Workers of Colombia, CTC.
Eight years later, the Jesuits, with the support of the Conservative Party, formed the Union
of Colombians, a workers center UTC conservative line.