| This study focuses on the process of organizational consolidation of the two larger Spanish trade unions during the 1980s and early 1990s; a period of membership decline and crisis for the labor movement in most advanced capitalist societies. The core of the thesis is based on a survey of 269 workplace-level union representatives from the Union General de Trabajadores (General Workers' Confederation) and Comisiones Obreras (Workers' Commissions). In addition, I use a variety of data sources, including in-depth interviews with informants, union documents and fieldwork notes. Like other European wage earners' organizations Spain's trade unions have faced complex political, economic and cultural challenges. Questions such as the changing ties between political parties and unions, the restructuring of European industrial relations under increasing globalization, the management of political and economic uncertainties through neo-corporatist social pacts and the sociological transformation of wage earners' organizations are some of the issues that I analyze in the dissertation. This research links macro and micro levels of analysis by examining national sociopolitical processes from the perspective of the workplace. I contend that the process of institutionalization of politically subordinated trade unions has been linked to the ideological redefinition of class-based organizations, which are constructing a new identity that seems to reflect their ongoing adaptation vis-a-vis the kind of post-industrial society that Spain has become. Though the main focus of the research is on this country, I do analyze some macro processes from a comparative perspective framing this case study within its European context. |
