Spain - A country that has no social contract - October 31, 2017

In an open letter in the journal El País, it is said that the country misses a social contract between previously antagonistic forces. The social democratic parties accepted that the market economy was a valid instrument of wealth creation. For its part, classical liberalism accepted the creation of a social state. On the one hand, an educational system aimed at guaranteeing equal opportunities. On the other, a system of public insurance and social programs aimed at covering the contingencies of loss of income due to unemployment, illness and retirement. A social contract that reconciled market economy, social progress and democracy was enshrined in agreements, signed by the government, the main political and trade union forces of the left and business organisations. That contract began to crumble in the nineties with the fall of wages and the return of inequality, both social and territorial. The final blow was given by the austerity policy. It attacked the basic pillars of education, health, pensions and unemployment benefits.  

Read on, in Spanish …  

For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. Since June 2013 readers can consult our archive and search through all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.euYou may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.

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