CV Quim Boix

Quim Boix i Lluch. Born in 1945. Industrial Engineer  degree from the High Technical College of Industrial Engineering, Barcelona 1970.
 
I was born to a couple of elementary school teachers. Mi father was dismissed by Franco´s dictatorship for being loyal to the Republic.
 
I joined the students´struggle in 1963; in 1964 I joined the political struggle.
 
In 1963 I was appointed student´s delegate of the Engineers´College of Barcelona in clear opposition to the dictatorship official student´s trade union. In 1965 I was appointed representative by thousands of Engineering students on a regional  basis in order to establish the Student´s Democratic Trade Union at the Barcelona University (SDEUB).
 
The opening sessions for this trade union opposed to the dictatorship were held  in a catholic monastery in Barcelona (taking advantage of the meeting right granted to Catholics by the Concordate signed between the Vatican and the Spanish government). After this meetings I was arrested and brutally tortured by the dictatorship´s police. These tortures were the origin of the first demonstration by progressive priest at the streets of Barcelona (12-5-1965). Consequiently I was expelled from the University for three years that I spent in jail and in an army garrison in the Sahara´s wilderness, where I was confined as a private after being dismissed of my rank at the University´s Militia, starting my term of service again.
 
After those three years I went back to the university while I made my living doing various jobs. I was just married then and had my first son, born with some anomalies due to the shock produced by my arrest and subsequent tortures to my wife (Michèle Le Falchier, dead in 2007) when she was pregnant.
After my degree I started to work as a computers engineer. In 1970 I was fired, I went to labor court (the first engineer in doing so during the dictatorship) but lost the case. Afterwards I went to work in the textile industru just to be fired again due to my activities as a trade unionist. I went to work for a metal International corporation, Boveri-Oerlikon (BBO). There I was appointed as head of the computers´department for Spain till I was democratically elected as the workers´ spokeman in order to fight for the new collective regulations. I was fired again, as the company considered that those two activities were not compatible. As a result, the workers went to general strike the day I was called by the Judie of the Labor´s Court and sang The Internationale in my support. A partially positive sentence was passed to my right to be under contract again as an engineer, so I had to appeal to the Madrid´s  Supreme Court, turned to be unemployed  during the following four years, while I was waiting for a new sentence to be passed.
During these years I worked as a volunteer without salary for the trade union Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) – actually I received my wages as social benefits to the unemployed before CCOO signed with the government the agreement focused in deep cuts on social benefits in terms of the money received by the unmployed worker as well as cuts on the terms and conditions of these benefits. During the firt part of this four years period I was the second in charge of the CCOO organization´s branch  in Catalonia, and afterwards I worked for the trade union´s Secretary as responsable of Professional Tecnicians and cadres (TPCs) apart from being elected member of the Executive Council of CCOO when Marcelino Camacho was its General Secretary and second responsable for TPCs on a national basis.
At this post I traveled very oftenly to France, Italy and Portugal to keep in contact with the class conscious trade unions of these countries.
After losing before the Highest Court (it happened in 1980; in spite of the political changes operated in the country after Franco´s death, nothing had changed concerning the bourgeoisie´s hegemony over the Justice system) I went to work from a private company to a state-owned enterprise, where I was appointed Engineer for the municipalty of a small town near Barcelona: Montcada i Reixac.
During my working life I have been fired eight times, arrested 11 times and tortured in several ocassions. I have been judged twice by the dictatorship´s court known as Public Order Court (Tribunal de Orden Público / TOP) that followed the fascists war tribunals. I was sentenced twice to serve time, six months each that I did in different jails.
 
I joined the Communist Party in 1964, taking part in all kind of responsabilities. In 1981 I was spokeman for those at the Party opposed to the EuroCommunism who won, on a democratic basis,  the 5º Congress (in spite of the tryings by Santiago Carrillo to avoid it). This was the first Congress legally held by the Catalan Communist of the PSUC. My last political task (prior to my current political responsability as member of the Guarantees Comission of the PCPE) was as responsible of Intrernatonal Affairs of the Communist Party of the Spanish Peoples (PCPE). I held this post during 18 years till 2009; frome then on I continued my work helping the further FSM´s development.
 
At 65, being the highest union representative in the company I worked for, I became a pensioner thus funding the CSU (Unitary Trade Union) of Pensioners and Retirees of which I´m currently President.
I was responsible of the Solidarity Comission with the Political Prisoners during Franco´s dictatorship (at this time I got in contact for the first time with the FSM, as the Spanish workers and political prisoners received a huge support from this organization. I was founder member of four local associations in Barcelona – my town. I also took part in other several platforms of unitary concern as the “Xarxa Contra els Tancaments, l’Atur i la Precarietat” (“social net against cuts, closures and precariousnes) that set the first stages to coordinate the alternative and class conscious trade unionism in Catalonia – opposed to the collaborating trade unionism of CCOO and UGT.
In 2005, in Havana, Cuba, I took part in the XV Congress of the FSM as Spanish Observer and as a representative of the class coscious trade unionism opposed to the collaborationist trade unionism developed by CCOO (at this point we must point out that CCOO left the FSM at the end of XX century in spite of the help it received from the FSM during Franco´s dictatorship).
I represented the FSM in several nternational activities of solidarity and support to the Sahara during three consecutive years (EUCOCO). I was also present at the congress of UGTSARIO in the liberated territories of Tinduf and also ar the International Conference RAnsa 2009 (High Level meeing for Food Security) held in Madrid. I took part in several meetings held in Europe by the FSM as wwell as in several international trade union´s seminaries.
At the XVI Congress of the FSM (held in april 2011) I was elected member of its Presidential Council. At this Congress I pointed, on behalf of the CSU of pensioners and retirees of tha Spanish state, to the necessity to organize the International of Trade Unions of pensioners and retitrees  (UIS number 10) of the FSM. George Mavrikos took note of this proposal to appear in the conclusions approved by the 16th Congress.
For that reason I was called during the 16ª congress to the first International of pensioners and retirees along with the other pensioners that were aslo delegates in the Congress. Afterwards I was cosen as President of the Committee in charge of preparations of the First World Congress of Trade Unions of pensioners and retirees attached to the FSM. (see: www.pensionistas.info )..
During two years we prepared this grear event that took place in Barcelona in February 2014. At this Congress I was unanimously elected as General Secretary of the new International of pensioners and retirees at the FSM.
Barcelona, March 2014.