Will Spanish Labor Be Joining the Revolution Soon? Don't Count On It.

Back at the end of September 2010, I had the fortune or misfortune of experiencing my second Huelga General (General Strike) since having moved to Madrid more than a decade before.  My first General Strike had been organized back in 2002 to protest reforms to Spanish unemployment subsidies.  I witnessed buses being attacked and was even accosted myself because I'd made the mistake of visiting my neighborhood supermarket.  When I told my flatmates from the Canary Islands what had happened to me as I'd left the store with groceries in hand, they nodded and explained to me as best they could what the General Strike was all about, and why the people were attacking public transport workers who had chosen to work, and shouting at people who had decided to go shopping.

So in 2010, I was a bit more prepared and certainly more knowledgeable.  For 24 hours, organized labor in Spain brought the country mostly to a standstill.  It was remarkable for me as an American, because I'd really had no experience to compare it with from back home.  Leading the charge were Spain's two biggest unions -- the CC.OO or Comisiones Obreros (Workers Commission) and the UGT or Union General de Trabajadores (General Workers Union).  Remarkable I should say for 24 hours, because after that everyone packed up and went home, and Spain's two biggest unions fell right back in line!  And so it goes.  Do not expect Spanish labor to join up with the Indignados any time soon as the biggest unions in Spain are bought and paid for.

No, I'm serious!  I didn't believe it either when I first heard about it from my Canary Island friends in their downtown Madrid apartment all those years ago.  The national and regional governments of Spain actually pay (bribe?) the 2 largest Spanish unions each year to the tune of tens of millions of Euros.  With unemployment hovering around 20%, the unions had every reason to be out in the streets back in 2010, and now you begin to understand why they didn't stay there.  Behind closed doors in some politician's office somewhere in Spain, approval was given for their little 24-hour show of force, as long as they remembered at the end of the day where the sugar was coming from.  Organized labor quietly pocketed the money again in 2011, and has kept quiet ever since.  Unemployment in Spain is still over 20%.  Now, enter the Indignados.

OK, perhaps you don't believe me.  Perhaps you are from a country like mine, so you cannot imagine the Teamsters or the United Auto Workers receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the US government and the 50 states, just so they won't cause trouble!  But I promise you, this is the situation in Spain.  I tried to dig up some links and statistics, but the unions and the governments of Spain do not openly brag about their arrangement.  This article from the Spanish daily La Razon begins (translation my own)....

According to a resolution from the Ministry of Labor published yesterday in the Official State Bulletin (BOE), the workers' organizations will receive this fiscal year 15,798,500 Euros for "subsidies for syndicates in proportion to their membership for the realization of labor activities".  The purpose behind this aid explained the BOE is "to foment financially the realization of any type of labor activity for the purpose of the defense and promotion of the economic and social interests of the workers".

This article from Noticias de Navarra speaks of €26.4 million that the UGT and CCOO received from the regional Navarran government between 2009-2011.  And this post on the Andalucian government's web page is about the €31.7 million the two unions received from it in 2011.  And this holds true all across Spain.  The national and regional governments pay off the 2 largest unions, and organized labor toes the line.  Union fat cats and their children enjoy their luxury cars and vacation homes, while Indignados call for a general strike and organized labor is silent.  The government is reaping its reward for those tens of millions of Euros spent.  This is exactly why the payments were made.


And so a call has gone out for another General Strike in Spain.  In fact, if you Google "Huelga General" now, the number 1 hit is for the 2011 General Strike that is currently being organized by the Indignados and a handful of the smaller labor unions in Spain, not the 2010 one.  Curiously (or if you have read my post, not so curiously) the CCOO and the UGT have not signed on to support the strike.  And so it goes.

Huelga General 2011 Web Page
My Photos from the 2010 Huelga General (Madrid)