ABSTRACT
The mid-1970s were heady days for Spanish trade unions. After being forced to operate in exile or at the margins of legality under the authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco, they burst onto the scene as important actors after Franco's death in 1975. According to one estimate, the combined membership in the General Workers' Union (UGT) and the Workers' Commissions (CCOO) grew by 60 per cent between 1977 and 1978 to reach a total of 1.6 million workers (Jordana 1996: 216). The unions themselves estimated a much larger increase, from 36,000 workers at the end of 1976 to nearly four million in 1978 (Van der Meer 1997: 41–2). 1 In addition, the unions demonstrated an impressive mobilizational capacity with strikes that caused an average annual loss of nearly 15 million workdays between 1976 and 1979 (Alonso 1991: 424).
