This article focuses on Barcelona during the Spanish Revolution, not
Public Services
Public Transport
After the city was liberated from fascist control by anarcho-syndicalists, the owners of the public transport systems fled, and the CNT democratised them. Buses, subway, streetcars - were separate union "sections", as were the repair depots. These all were managed through elected committees, answerable to assemblies of the workers. An engineer was elected to each administrative committee, to facilitate consultation between manual workers and engineers. There was an overall assembly for decisions that affected the transit-system as a whole. There was no top manager or executive director. A 7-member elected worker committee was responsible for overall coordination.
Streetcars/Tram
The main public transport system was a large system of streetcars/trams that operated 60 routes across the city and surrounding suburbs. Before the revolution, the system was maintained by 7,000 people, 6,500 of whom were members of the CNT. During the initial days of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, many transport workers fought in the fighting and even used an armoured streetcar/tram. The system had been badly damaged, tracks were unworkable, overhead wires snapped, equipment boxes shot and tracks blocked by barricades. Within 5 days, the workers had completely repaired the system and re-painted the cars in the red and black colour scheme of anarcho-syndicalism. Previously, the equipment boxes of the electric company had been placed in the middle of streets, leading to tracks being tightly curved around them, frequently leading to derailments. Afterwards, a move of the boxes and straightening of the tracks was made between the transport and electrical workers. In addition, electrical wiring powering the tracks were moved from the centre of the tracks to the side in order to be safer.
Barcelona Tramways had operated with a fare zone system which meant that it cost more for people in the outer working class suburbs to get into the city center. The worker-run transit operation switched to a flat fare throughout the metropolitan area, to equalize fare costs to riders. Despite this lowering of the fare, the worker-run transit system operated at a profit. A sizeable part of this profit was donated to the anti-fascist war effort. Workers also donated their time on Sundays to work in factories set up in transit system workshops to make munitions for the anti-fascist armies. New tools and machinery from France and the USA were purchased to give each section a surplus of spare parts for repairs. Before the revolution, the private company had only made about 2% of the repairs through its own workshops and were set up only to deal with the most urgent repairs. But within a year under workers management, the workshops were manufacturing 98% of the parts used. They were able to do this and still make a profit, despite a 150% increase in prices of raw materials.