SINDICALISM AND ECONOMIC CRISIS: THREATS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

The article analyses the impact the current economic crisis is having on Spanish trade unions and the challenges, threats and opportunities it poses for them. We highlight the ambivalent implications for the unions of the effects the crisis is having on the labour market, the welfare state, governance and political representation. We argue that the deterioration of the labour market generates social unrest that, potentially, the unions can channel, but that it also intensifies and aggravates the difficulties facing trade unions in representing the unemployed and non-typical workers. Reduced protection and coverage from the welfare state also contributes to this social unrest, but it can lower public confidence in the efficiency of trade union action. The crisis of governance calls into question the social and political role played by the main trade unions and leaves them without one of their traditional sources of legitimacy, namely social dialogue. Finally, the crisis of the system of political representation affects trade unions by weakening social trust in them. In this context, the challenge facing the unions is to adapt their actions to the new circumstances so workers continue to regard them as useful and efficient defenders of their interests.