Social Pacts in Spain
1990s
Background
The history of post–Franco national social dialogue in Spain is rich and complex. Bipartite or tripartite pacts have been part of the democratisation processes since the late 1970s.
Paradoxically, however, when the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) took power in 1982, this early process of national social concertation stalled after the Economic and Social Agreement in 1984. The
PSOE reasoned that the Spanish labour market's problems were due to supply side problems and suspended the concertation processes which focused on demand side measures.
Political concerns (threat of election defeat and subsequent regime change) as well as the deteriorating economic situation as a result of the ERM currency crisis in 1992 brought about the resurgence
of national social dialogue in Spain in the 1990s.
Since the 1990s, a new mode of social dialogue was established in Spain. With the election of the conservative Popular Party (PP) in 1996, there has been a resurgence of national social dialogue.
The first major agreement reached under the new government was the Agreement on the Rationalisation of the System of Social Security signed by the government and two main workers’ organisations
(the Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (CC.OO) and the General Workers’ Confederation (UGT)). This was an integrative part of the wider political pact known as the Toledo Pact, agreed
to by all major political parties and approved by the parliament in 1995. The pact deals with changes in the system of public, contributory and universal pension. Although the major principles of
the pension system remained intact, the pact agreed on a change in the calculation of pension formula towards the reduction of both pension contributions and payments, while respecting the overall
fiscal balance.
The 1990s also saw the emergence of bipartite social dialogue in the area of collective bargaining. Workers’ and employers’ organisations were able to negotiate without the
government’s influence on the issues of collective bargaining and labour market reform. The three pacts agreed in 1997 (Interconfederal Agreement for Stability in Employment (AIEE), Interconfederal
Agreement on the Coverage of Gaps “Vacíos”, and Interconfederal Agreement on Collective Bargaining (AINC)) built on the earlier pact agreed in 1994 (Interconfederal Agreement on
Labour Ordinances and Work Regulations). They served as a landmark for the future of bipartite collective bargaining by setting out a clear structure and the scope of collective bargaining. The AINC
clarified the roles of different levels of collective bargaining by addressing the problem of how to coordinate the different levels of collective bargaining. The agreement expanded the issues to
be dealt with through collective bargaining, which enhanced the influence of the social partners in the policy debate on labour market reforms.
Before the 1990s, the socialist government insisted on agreeing to “grand” social pacts on comprehensive social and economic issues. Pacts agreed suffered from their unarticulated contents
with an unclear locus of responsibility. The success of social pacts in Spain in the 1990s is partly to do with the conservative government’s willingness to promote more focussed issue-based
social pacts. It is also due to the improved institutional capacity of the social partners.
| 
