ABSTRACT
Spanish unions pose a set of interesting puzzles. For example, how were workers able to organize in the Workers’ Commissions when the authoritarian regime oppressed any kind of opposition movement? Why was a democratic industrial relations system not established early on in the transition even though workers had been prominent in their opposition to the Franco dictatorship? Why was the establishment of democratic industrial relations for workers delayed in comparison with other areas of democratization? Why did the relations between the Socialist Party and the unions deteriorate and national tripartite agreements fail once the PSOE was firmly established in government? How did unions succeed in recovering some of their lost strength during the 1990s when unions in other Western European countries began to experience significant weakening? Why did the conservative PP government initiate tripartite pacts with the unions, only to then begin to rely more on unilateral legislation? And finally, why did the unions stage a general strike against the PSOE government under Zapatero when the country was caught up in the global financial crisis, and Zapatero was committed to negotiations with unions as a way of reforming welfare and labor market policies? While these questions may appear to be unrelated and specific to particular time periods or governments in recent Spanish history, they nonetheless share common themes related to the role of the state in industrial relations, ties between political parties and unions, union engagement in shaping national policies through social pacts, and, lastly, unions’ role as a political actor.
