Political and Economic Factors Influencing Strike Activity during the Recent Economic Crisis: A Study of the Spanish Case between 2002 and 2013 (original) (raw)

On the Usefulness of Combining Strike and Protest Research: Some Insights from the Spanish Case (2000-2016)

Empiria. Revista de metodología de ciencias sociales, 2021

During the past half century, the study of social contention has been characterized by a division between research on labor movements and studies on other social movements. This division also left its mark on the study of modes of action: while labor scholars mainly examined strikes, social movement scholars have increasingly come to focus on street protests. This article is a contribution to bridging the gap between the two research areas both on theoretical and empirical levels. On a theoretical level, I discuss the usefulness of combining economic and political models of contention from the two research areas. On an empirical level, I use official data provided by Spanish ministries to examine and relate the workers’ use of strikes and street protests between 2000 and 2016 in Spain. Examining strikes and street protests jointly does not only provide a fuller picture, it also helps to discern contrasts and thus the specificities of each mode of action. En el último medio siglo, lo...

Political, general, or economic strikes? New types of strikes and workers' contention

Partecipazione e Conflitto

The article provides an overview of workers' collective actions in Italy between 2008 and 2018, which characterized a new wave of contention; the article focuses on the development of strike activities in this period. While the literature suggests an increase in general/political strikes and a decline of economic strikes, we argue that this distinction does not sufficiently account for the variety of strikes that has recently occurred. Our contribution aims to clarify the differences between three types of strikes: general political strike, general/large-scale economic strike, and local economic strike. The empirical analysis is based on a new data set of workers' collective actions, including strikes, observed in Italy in the decade 2008-2018. The data set was built using protest event analysis (PEA). Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) reveals three types of strikes that differ along these dimensions: the actors promoting them, the workers' occupations involved, the issues claimed, the scale of action, and the addressee of the actions. Conclusions compare the characteristics of workers' contentious actions between 2008 and 2018 with the old cycle of protests observable in the 1960s and 1970s, and suggest an integration of economic and political explanations to account for the new types of strikes.

« Economic crisis and Social protest in Spain : Labor Unions and Social Movements at Odds », Critique internationale, n°65, 2014, pp. 27-42.

descontento social y la generación in. 15M: in-conformismo, in-ternacionalizado, in-estabilidad, in-dignación, in-ternet, Madrid, Editorial Popular, 2013; M. Cruells, P. Ibarra (eds.), La democracia del futuro, del 15M a la emergencia de una sociedad civil viva, op. cit.; Carlos Taibo, Nada será como antes. Sobre el movimiento 15-M, Madrid, La Catarata, 2011. 4. A good part of the sociological research into collective mobilizations is also inspired by the resource mobilization paradigm but does not call into question the gap between labor struggles and other types of social mobilization. A.

When Corporatism Fails: Trade Union Strategies and Grassroots Resistance to the Spanish Economic Crisis

Journal of Labor and Society

This article analyses the fragmented working class struggles that emerged in Spain after the eruption of the economic crisis in 2008–2010. Through the use of qualitative methods, such as in‐depth interviews and activist participant observation, the article traces the progressive institutionalization of the major Spanish trade unions—Comisiones Obreras and Union General de Trabajadores—, which during the crisis have prioritized the defense of social dialog over the adoption of more radical strategies. The article argues that the incapacity of institutionalized trade unions to organize an increasing proportion of displaced workers, including unemployed and precarious workers, has been challenged through the establishment of new, more inclusive grassroots forms of resistance and mobilization based on civil disobedience, prefigurative practices, and direct action.

A Strike against the Left: General Strikes and Public Opinion of Incumbent Governments in Spain

Political Studies, 2021

Political links between labor unions and leftist political parties have weakened over the last four decades in Western Europe, reducing the former's influence on the latter. Unions' prolonged organizational decline suggests that their capacity to pressure left parties should become more limited. We examine whether unions can use general strikes to influence public opinion when left parties in government pursue austerity policies. Executing a distributive lag time series analysis of quarterly public opinion data from 1986 to 2015 in Spain, we find that Socialist governments incurred significant public opinion penalties in the wake of a general strike. Not only did PSOE prime ministers lose confidence from the public, but they also witnessed a significant reduction in voting intentions. In contrast, Spain's conservative governments incurred no such public opinion penalties in response to general strikes. We conclude that general strikes carry significant political costs for left governments that stray from union ideals.

Unions against Governments: Explaining General Strikes in Western Europe, 1980-2006

2013

Across Western Europe, unions have increasingly engaged in staging general strikes against governments since 1980. This increase in general strikes is puzzling as it has occurred at the same time as economic strikes have been on the decline. We posit that theories developed to explain economic strikes hold little explanatory power in accounting for variation in general strikes across countries and over time. Instead, we develop a framework based on political variables; in particular, whether governments have included or excluded unions in framing policy reforms; the party position of the government; and the type of government. Our empirical analysis, based on a conditional fixed-effects logit estimation of 84 general strikes between 1980 and 2006, shows that union exclusion from the process of reforming policies, government strength, and the party position of the government can provide an initial explanation for the occurrence of general strikes.