Abstract
This article discusses the role of employers and their organizations in promoting or hindering social insurance schemes and, ultimately, the welfare state. Unlike most studies that center on countries in periods of democracy, this research focuses on the role of employers, and specifically employers’ mutuals, in the development of the industrial accident scheme during the Franco dictatorship in Spain. The institutional elimination of the class struggle, by repressing the working class and prohibiting class-based unions, led to an evolution of the industrial accident scheme and employers’ liabilities that revolved around the interrelationship between employers and the state. While employers tried to keep control of the management and low cost of the insurance, the state maintained significant bureaucratic intervention and increased auditing and control. The democratic period that began in 1977 prolonged the structure fostered during the Franco regime and enhanced the power of the mutuals in managing this insurance.
Highlights
The classic institutionalist historiography on the construction of the welfare state consolidated the idea that its progress depended on, and was driven by, the struggles of workers and progressive movements
There was a progressive loss of the autonomy that these entities had enjoyed in the preceding decades. This was exacerbated with passage of Ley de Financiación y Perfeccionamiento de la Acción Protectora del Régimen General de la Seguridad Social (Law on the Financing and Improvement of the Protective Action of the General Social Security Scheme) in 1972.40 This law provided that the premiums of industrial accident insurance collected by employers’ mutuals, which to date had been the exclusive ownership of employers, was considered
The legislation implemented in 1966 had provided that the workers of public territorial entities, public companies, or companies considered to be of national interest could not belong to an employers’ mutual to cover the risk of industrial accidents or occupational diseases
Summary
The classic institutionalist historiography on the construction of the welfare state consolidated the idea that its progress depended on, and was driven by, the struggles of workers and progressive movements. There was a progressive loss of the autonomy that these entities had enjoyed in the preceding decades This was exacerbated with passage of Ley de Financiación y Perfeccionamiento de la Acción Protectora del Régimen General de la Seguridad Social (Law on the Financing and Improvement of the Protective Action of the General Social Security Scheme) in 1972.40 This law provided that the premiums of industrial accident insurance collected by employers’ mutuals, which to date had been the exclusive ownership of employers, was considered. The legislation implemented in 1966 had provided that the workers of public territorial entities (i.e., state, province, or municipality), public companies, or companies considered to be of national interest could not belong to an employers’ mutual to cover the risk of industrial accidents or occupational diseases Instead, they had to join the corresponding Mutua Laboral (workers’ mutuals)..
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