Economic restructuring underlies crisis in textile and clothing employers' association

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The employers' association in the Spanish textiles and clothing sector is undergoing a process of reorganisation in 1998, triggered by the refusal of the association's component subsectors to re-elect a chair from the traditionally important clothing industry. Clothing employers are considering separating from their textiles counterparts.

The Spanish Intertextile Council (Consejo Intertextil Español ), representing the business subsectors of the textiles and clothing sector, was set up at the beginning of the democratic transition in Spain in 1979. Its initial aim was to unite the whole sector, which had previously been fragmented into eight specialised associations for specific fibres or industrial processes (wool, cotton, silk, knitwear, clothing, finishing, recycled fibres and synthetic fibres), some of which had had a long history.

Three elements contributed to the unification of the sector:

• the negotiation of a single collective sectoral agreement unified the working conditions of the whole sector, which had previously been separated into many subsectoral and provincial agreements;

• the preparation of the sector to face the effects of Spain's membership of the European Community; and

• the appointment of a single sectoral representative to the public administration, for the purposes of negotiating a series of plans for reorganising and restructuring the sector.

The organisation of the Council was based on confederal lines in order to take advantage of the organisational capacity of each of the subsectoral associations and to avoid creating a top-heavy organisational system. Its operation was based on a board structure comprising the chairs of all the associations, each with the same voting and decision-making rights, with its own chair usually elected by consensus and in rotation.

This structure worked well over the period after its establishment. However, at the same time, the sector has undergone considerable restructuring that has led, among other consequences, to a major reorganisation of its productive capacity. The number of companies has decreased greatly, the generalised use of synthetic fibres has transformed traditional specialisations, and major new industrial locations such as Galicia (north-east Spain) have arisen, mainly in the clothing industry. These changes have also affected the basic organisation of the Council. Some component associations now have far fewer members, and their organisational capacity has therefore been reduced. New and very dynamic regional employers' associations based on providing services have arisen. The clothing industry represents approximately half the employment in the sector, whereas the number of jobs in the textiles industry has decreased. The different characteristics of the sector, especially between textiles and clothing, and their different strategies regarding human resource management, are reflected in the difficulties that appear every year in reaching a consensus among the different subsectors during the negotiation of the sectoral collective agreement.

All these changes have led to the need for an internal reorganisation of the Council to meet the future challenges of the sector. Greater international competitiveness requires an organisation with a greater capacity for influence and for providing services to companies, especially in the areas of foreign trade, training and the environment.

These are the basic reasons behind the crisis that has broken out in the Council in 1998: the need for a thorough organisational reorganisation, and the balance of forces between the clothing industry and the rest of the sector. An attempt to achieve the re-election of the chair of the clothing industry employers as the chair of the whole Council has met strong resistance from the textiles subsectors that are in favour of reorganising the Council in order to make its action more effective. The election by a majority vote of a new chair of the Council, from the knitwear subsector, led to a demand from the clothing industry for a balance of power more in line with its importance within the Council. The possible split of the clothing industry from the Council has hung over all the debates. However, the three reasons that led to the creation of the Council almost 20 years ago are still a very important unifying factor. Foreign competitiveness, negotiations with the administration and negotiations with the trade unions are three powerful arguments in favour of unity, even if major internal change certainly proves necessary.