The era of neoliberal globalization has been linked to the disempowerment of the working class. Greater competition among workers at the international level as markets expand has been related to workers’ greater incapacity. By the end of the 1990s, we start to see the emergence of a “third way” idea: “maybe we shouldn\u2019t struggle in the old way and instead accompany capital, and it could be beneficial for all of us.” Of course, unions continue to struggle and try to maintain their capacity, but they also start to accept the logic of capital and embrace this discourse.<\/p>\n
In Spain, and especially in the Basque Country, a strong rank-and-file movement had developed in resistance to the Franco dictatorship. During the transition following Franco\u2019s death, that movement was struggling for workers\u2019 rights, higher wages, and a voice as part of constituting this democracy. The socialist party and the communist party sought to take a grip of this situation and impose quite a vertical system of semi-centralized collective bargaining.<\/p>\n
The big Spanish unions, CCOO and UGT, came to a sort of acceptance of this system. The strategy was not to bring too much radicalism to their demands. The strong horizontal movement of workers was then absorbed into this new pact with the post-Franco state. These unions may try to claim they are horizontal, but since their legal appearance they have not been. Spain became a periphery to the core of the European economy, and a lot of factories were closed, including in the Basque Country. The unions, including the largest Basque union, ELA, were critical of this, of course \u2014 but they were ultimately accepting the rules of the game.<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, ELA goes through an internal critique of its strategy and this ultimately leads to them separating from the Spanish unions and from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), the largest party in the Basque Country. Over ten years they come to the conclusion that the social dialogue strategy is not useful, either for their own organization or to improve the condition of the workers. The UGT and CCOO go in the other direction, more toward organizing at the higher level \u2014 signing big pacts with government.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the split becomes quite sharp between ELA and LAB [the other big Basque union, closely connected to the Basque nationalist left] on the one hand and CCOO and UGT on the other.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n \n \n