西班牙社會主義勞工黨執政時期薪資協議之研究(1982-1996)

Abstract

Social pacts and concertation have become established as part and parcel of the post-Franco policy process in Spain. While unions cooperate to moderate wage demands in accord with income policy, based on the agreements among unions, employers and at times the government, it would contribute to keep inflation low, increase profitability and thus create jobs. In this regard, social democratic governments have traditionally been more open to the participation of unions and employers in collective bargaining and macroeconomic policy making. The concertation, however, collapsed during the government of Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE). By December 1988, the two major unions in Spain called an ever most unprecedented general strike since the Second Republic to oppose some of government’s unilateral programmes. The significance of this strike meant not only the break-up of the socialist party-union relations in Spain, but also the difficulties to be emerged from the path to a successful concertation. This study focus on the impacts of the strategic interaction among tripartite, particularly the subsidiary role played by socialist union to government, on the concertation process. Given the institutional immaturity of Spanish concertation itself, the unchallengeable and decisive power on PSOE government’s hands is another major cause to the collapse of policy process. Even where pacts had been concluded, these were not on the basis of institutional and legislative arrangements. Although the social bargaining during the government of PSOE had something to do with the legacy of the statist corporatism, the efforts of political learning of social actors tend not end concertation process at which it has been. As a formal member in European Monetary Union (EMU), there is an exact need for Spanish government to moderate wage demand through social concertation; meanwhile, it is also necessary for unions and employer associations to develop collective goods in the same way, so as to enhance competitiveness of domestic firms, and to defend labours’ rights and interests on the labour market.