Union-Worker Relations in a Transforming Spain

Abstract

Spain is a country attracting a high degree of interest because of its recent political, social and economic crises and developments. In the area of industry and labour it has appeared to compress a move to industrialism and, if observers are correct, the first tentative steps towards postindustrialism within a short space of time. In the sphere of labour this has meant a rapid pace of development in constituency and institutions which exposes some of the rigidities in our thinking on trade union development and action. The way the unions of Spain have attempted to represent workers and their interests throws into sharp focus many of the problems facing the western labour movements as well as many of the possibilities at the same time. These possibilities appear to rest on a questioning of the industrial/employment relationship as the principal or sole basis of trade union existence, and on a reconsideration of its social and political origins.