José Ángel Fernández Villa: The fall in the mud of a reference … – La Voz de Galicia

José Ángel Fernández Villa: The fall in the mud of a reference … – La Voz de Galicia

“We did not deserve this.” The words spoken yesterday by the president and secretary general of Asturias Asturian Socialist Federation (FSA), Javier Fernández abstract feeling provoked in the socialist ranks and those of the UGT fall into the mire of one of the leading figures of mining struggle. Especially how to do it, after hiding assets from the IRS 1.4 million unknown origin. Without doubt, the worst sin for a union leader who fought against the encroachments of capital and the rights of workers.

Villa José Ángel Fernández (Oviedo, 1943) was not just any on the powerful mining union UGT-Soma, who led for 35 years, until 2013 From humble social background, their work began early. At age 14 he worked as click and go to work gets 16 in Santa Eulalia well. With professionals in the world of mining beginnings, also began his career in politics and the trade union struggle. In 1970 formalized its entry into UGT and the PSOE, then illegal. With the passage of time becomes a benchmark for the workers’ cause, coordinating hundreds of protests, hunger strikes and sit-ins. In an extremely harsh repressive climate, lived six collective redundancies until 1976 amnesty allows you to re-enter Hunosa, and be the first democratic representation of workers, known as the Committee of 16.

In the eighties, during the mining crisis, even said that before closing a well would take over his body. Hunosa her then more than 20,000 workers, a figure that dropped to less than two thousand in 2012, a year before Fernandez Villa leave the general secretary Soma-UGT. Claimed health problems to explain their bye.

His political life ran parallel to the Asturian Socialist Federation. He was a senator from 1999 to 2003, and was deputy regional organic positions on the FSA. The historic socialist leader was one of the regular meetings of Rodiezmo, (León), a date reference for the mandate of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in which the PSOE and UGT drew muscle in late summer, before the start of a new political course. From that time retained the gold medal of Merit for Labour he received in 2009 from the hands of the then Minister for Employment, Celestino Corbacho. Those were different times.