Industrial action and disputes in Spain

The right to strike is regulated by Royal Decree-Law 17/1977, the Spanish Constitution and a judgment of the Constitutional Court (No. 11/1981).

According to these regulations, there are two types of industrial actions: the strike (la huelga) and the lockout (cierre patronal). A strike is a collective action by workers consisting of the agreed withdrawal of their labour. It is normally directed against the employer to back up the collective bargaining process and force compliance with statutory or contractual regulations.

On the other hand, a lockout is an industrial action taken unilaterally by the employer and consisting of the total or partial cessation of production activity. The basis may be the physical closure of the company, or some other action taken to prevent the performance of work. To protect the right to strike, Spanish legislation allows lockouts only when people or property are in danger, as a policing measure. However, they are a measure rarely put into practice by employers.

In Spain, a strike can be called by the majority of employee representatives in the workplace, by all the employees of a company (by simple majority) and by the trade unions that are representative in a sector. The decision to call a strike must be communicated to the company and to the labour authority five days before it is to be held. For public companies, the notification period is 10 days. Finally, a strike committee made up of a maximum of 12 members must also be established.

During the strike, labour contracts become suspended. The right to strike is an individual right that is collectively exercised. Therefore, individual workers are free to choose whether or not to participate.

The only strikes that are forbidden are political strikes, solidarity strikes and strikes that aim to challenge a collective agreement that is in force; However, Spain has a tradition of these types of strikes, often taking the form of a general strike (because of the prohibition of the specific types).

Recently, in year 2015, due to the Spanish Penal Code reform (Organic Law 1/2015), a change was introduced on the strike issue. Article 315(3) states that those acting in a group or individually, but in agreement with others, who coerce other people to initiate or continue a strike should be punished with imprisonment for 1 year and 9 months up to 3 years or with a fine and 18 months’ to 24 months’ imprisonment.

Prevalence of various forms of industrial action, 2010–2019

Note: Percentage of private sector establishments reporting any form of industrial action during the indicated period. n.a., not available.

Source: Eurofound, European Company Survey 2019

Developments in industrial action, 2012–2022

Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Economy,‘Strikes developed, workers participating and days not worked, by sectoral, institutional, territorial and motivation aspects’ (‘Huelgas desarrolladas, trabajadores participantes y jornadas no trabajadas, por ámbitos sectorial, institucional, territorial y por motivación’), Statistical Yearbook 2022.

Collective dispute resolution mechanisms

In 1996, the Agreement on the Extrajudicial Resolution of Labour Conflicts (Acuerdo de Solución Extrajudicial de Conflictos) was concluded. It was renewed in 2020 until 2024 by the UGT, CCOO (the unions) and the CEOE and Cepyme (the employer organisations). This agreement opened the door for the creation of a private foundation administered by the Interconfederal Service of Mediation and Arbitration, financed entirely by the state and managed autonomously by the social partners. It provides free services, similar to those of the joint institutions of the communities.

According to the agreement, the procedures and aspects covered include:

• the interpretation and application of a state legislation, collective agreement, agreement or pact, whatever its effectiveness, or a decision or practice of the company

• conflicts that arise from the negotiation of a collective agreement that entail its blockade

• conflicts that lead to a blockade in a negotiation or agreement

• conflicts that arise from a call for a strike or from arrangements for security and maintenance services in the event of a strike

• conflicts that affect several work centres of a company, group of companies or related companies, located in different autonomous communities

In addition, different regional arbitration institutions were established through social partners’ agreements in Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, Cantabria, Castile-La Mancha since the late 1990s. In 2022, the regional government of Castile-La Mancha, formed by a coalition of far-right and conservative parties, announced the closure of the regional industrial relations service, alleging lack of funding (La Razón, 2023).

Individual dispute resolution mechanisms

In the case of individual conflicts, first there are conflicts of law – that is, conflicts that concern the interpretation of laws or arise from the implementation of collective agreements. These conflicts can be submitted to a judicial process that will start once the suit has been presented by either party, after a compulsory attempt at conciliation in the administrative headquarters by means of conciliation bodies created through agreements reached between the trade unions and employer organisations.

As far as administrative conflicts are concerned, the conciliation process is carried out in the presence of a conciliating lawyer assigned by the state, whose role is limited to merely facilitating an understanding. He or she will refrain from making proposals. If the two parties fail to reach an agreement, they can call for institutional arbitration. Through this process, the parties, at their own will, submit their conflict to the decision of a person outside the justice Administration (a civil servant lawyer who is appointed by the state and is not a judge). He or she will issue a binding decision that must be abided by and will have the same effect as a ruling issued by a judge that cannot be appealed. If the process of conciliation and/or arbitration concludes without agreement, the following phase will be carried out in the social courts.

Finally, conflicts can be submitted to the social courts. These are organised according to their judicial competencies at regional level (High Court) and at national level (the National Court and the Supreme Court).

The table below presents information on the number of collective conflicts solved through judicial mechanisms and those managed through the Interconfederal Service of Mediation and Arbitration and regional out-of-court conflict resolution mechanisms. What we can observe is that with the economic recovery (2012-2020), the number of conflicts solved through judicial or non-judicial mechanisms has declined very significantly. However, the latest figures available for 2021 show an increase in the number of issues dealt with through various resolution dispute mechanisms. This trend can be explained by the massive adoption of short-time work schemes, which prevented companies from firing their employees during the first six months of the pandemic.

Use of collective dispute resolution mechanisms, 2012–2021

Note: SIMA, Interconfederal Service of Mediation and Arbitration.

Source: Annual statistics of the Ministry of Employment and Social Economy.