The Dissolution of Party–Union Relations in Spain

Abstract

Nowhere in Western Europe has the relationship between political parties and trade unions changed as rapidly or as dramatically as in Spain. During the 1970s and early 1980s, two parties and unions the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Communist Party (PCE) and Workers' Commissions (CCOO) competed nationwide for the representation of working-class interests. Despite their formal absence from political and economic arenas for nearly forty years, the unions and parties developed alliances that mirrored those found in other European democracies, with unions acting largely as transmission belts for the parties. Moreover, the unions interacted with governments and employers through a series of social accords that resembled neo-corporatist arrangements. During the mid-1980s this constellation of relationships ended. The PCE disintegrated, leaving the CCOO to search for a new political partner. The PSOE assumed political control over the working class and over the government. The neoliberal content of the PSOE's policies and its style of governance, however, led to a divorce between the party and the UGT. The two unions, once competitors, allied with each other. The cooperation between labor, capital, and government that characterized the transition was replaced by outright confrontation by the late 1980s.