ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a short section on the nature of the 'political' in industrial relations analysis and argues that the political must be seen in a dynamic and complex manner. In the case of Spain, the socio-political identity of Spanish unions and their specific means of mobilization need to be constantly mediated in their own right, as they elaborate new strategies for dealing with the broader issue of political representation and intervention. The limits of broad negotiation coupled with the limited gains from 'mobilization' strategies between 1988 and 1994 meant that alternative, moderate currents of the CCOO began to emerge using unity with the Union General de Trabajadores as point of legitimation for their discourse of 'modernization' and unitary action through new forms of negotiation. Union responses themselves become a reference point for union identity over time, and eventually constitute themselves as ideological and organizational resources that link them to their members.
