The data is incontestable: 50.36% of the strikes that were registered in Spain in 2022 were concentrated in the Basque Country. In other words, 342 of the 679 strikes that took place in Spain were registered in the Autonomous Community of Euskadi, according to the latest balance from the Ministry of Labour. The volume is even more striking if we consider the days not worked due to a strike, where the percentage reaches 54% of the total, or the number of workers who participated, which reaches 55% of all those in Spain. they seconded strikes. Surprising data for a community whose population weight does not reach 5% of the total and that invite experts and the parties involved to analyze the reasons for this trend.
In the first place, it should be noted that, although the Basque Country has been in the lead for years in terms of the percentage of strikes, never before this past year had such an overwhelming percentage been reached. In 2021, 37% of all strikes registered in Spain were concentrated in the Basque Country, while in 2020 they were 29%. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, 34% of the total were registered and a year before, 36%.
In the last decade, in no year have less than 25% of the total strikes registered in Spain been concentrated (in 2016 they were 25.6%), so that it is not a conjunctural situation, even though in the past By the year 2022 the trend has reached a peak with that 50.36%. The percentage of total strikes in Spain has always been between five and ten times over the last decade over the population weight of the community.
Why does the Basque Country concentrate such an overwhelming percentage of the total number of strikes in Spain? In the opinion of Elena Pérez Barredo, Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security of the Basque Government, the fundamental reason "lies in the trade union difference that exists in Euskadi". “There are four big unions (ELA, LAB, UGT and CC.OO.), and the one with the greatest weight, ELA, has a union strategy and a union culture that encourages confrontation”, she indicates.
“Specifically, ELA has two important lines of action. The first is the priority of the company agreement, which causes many small strikes. The second is a very marked strategy in favor of the strike as an instrument of confrontation”, he adds.
Jon Las Heras is a professor of Political Economy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and author, together with the economist Lluis Rodríguez, of the research Make a strike to renew. From this publication it can be deduced that the Basque Country leads the number of strikes, not only in Spain, but also throughout Europe.
Las Heras points to a fundamental reason: the strategy of the unions that are stronger in the Basque Country. “Basically, the data reflects that there is a differentiation in union strategies with respect to collective bargaining. In Spain there is a common framework that allows autonomy, and there it is reflected that, depending on which are the trade union organizations that predominate, one or the other strategies are imposed. In this case, in the Basque Country there are two unions, ELA and LAB, although above all the former, who think that confrontation is a useful tool when it comes to negotiating working conditions and achieving conquests. In the rest of Spain, the two strongest unions, CC.OO. and UGT, do not think that the conflict is going to expedite the negotiations, ”he indicates.
Las Heras considers that issues such as the greater industrial weight or the better working conditions, compared to some autonomies, remain in the background: "In Europe there are obviously richer areas and with better working conditions, and there are no more strikes . The fundamental factor is ELA's union strategy, which is committed to this path and, furthermore, has the conditions to carry out strikes. In the investigation that I carried out, I found data such as that ELA, in the same context, made 100 times more strikes than UGT and CC.OO."
From the hundred-year-old Basque union they point to the same reason when asked about the data from the latest report from the Ministry of Labor. This is how Pello Igeregi, ELA's head of collective bargaining, explains it. “There is a fundamental factor, and that is that the main union, ELA, has the strike at the center of its union activity. Working conditions are worsening, precariousness is increasing, and companies are not going to give in of their own free will. We are clear that to turn this situation around, the strike is the most powerful instrument we have. In addition, we have conditions to maintain these strikes: we have a resistance box that allows us to carry them out, ”he explains.
Igeregi also points to secondary factors such as the greater industrial weight, which "facilitates more strikes." “It is easier to organize workers in the industrial field. There is a greater union tradition and the workers are in the same place, there is no dispersion of workers that exists in the service sector. In addition, there is less precariousness and, consequently, workers are less afraid of participating in a strike. In any case, the fundamental thing is the union strategy ”, he summarizes.
The consensus around the differential factor is, therefore, evident. From there, logically, the aforementioned union strategy offers different assessments, from the recurring criticism of the Basque business confederation Confebask, which places this organization as a focus of labor conflict, to the positive reading made by the ELA union itself, satisfied with the results that this bet is offering and with the growing weight of the group.
In his research on the strike strategy in Euskadi and Navarra within the European context, Las Heras carries out a historical analysis and places the year 2001 as a turning point. As of that year, the dynamic of calling strikes systematically in collective bargaining takes force and ELA is definitely in a position of "counterpower".
“In the 80s and 90s, in Cantabria or Asturias there were more strikes than in the Basque Country. The difference comes with what happens next. The number of strikes decreases in the rest of the territories, and in Euskadi it is maintained and even increases ”, he indicates.
In his opinion, ELA's position also has a contagion effect on other unions, which "perhaps in another context would act differently and bet on other strategies."
Las Heras concludes with a final note regarding the nature of the Basque strikes. He underlines the weight that strikes such as the metal strike in Bizkaia have had, a fundamental factor when it comes to explaining why this year this 50% of the total strikes have been reached, although he indicates that the commitment to the strike strategy also reaches to “precarious and feminized sectors”, such as residences, cleaning or even multinational textile manufacturing and distribution.
