Trade unions as retaining walls against political change: A Gramscian approach to remunicipalisation policies in a Spanish City

Abstract

The 2008 economic and political crisis produced a favourable opportunity structure for the emergence of new and innovative left-wing political projects and trade union strategies in Spain, especially in relation to remunicipalisation processes that sought to revert the neoliberal policy making at the local scale. The article deploys a Gramscian analysis on trade union discourse production in order to discern complex process of working-class formation and intra-class conflict in the beach cleaning units of the Andalusian city of Cádiz. Crucially, the oppositional stand defended by one of the largest trade unions in Spain towards remunicipalisation shows that trade unions can act as ‘retaining walls’ against political change in periods of social upheaval.

Trade Unions in the European Union

“…This dynamic of short but large-scale general strikes has nevertheless been central, and to some extent more successful, in certain key autonomous states within Spain, as can be seen in recent years in the Basque Country (Gorosarri and Sauviat 2016). There is an emerging critical view of how the larger unions have been responding to questions of financial austerity and the forms of collective action they have taken, which have been criticized as not extensive enough (Roca and Las Heras 2020) Diverse forms of worker conflict and action have also been seen in recent years. Some of these developments echo the direct forms of action, assemblyism and workplace occupations of the early years of the political transition (see Colectivo de Estudios por la Autonomía Obrera 1977).…”