SPAIN : OVERVIEW

HISTORY
Spain was ruled by monarchs of the Arragon, Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties until 1931 when a republic was proclaimed. Following the defeat of the Republicans in the civil war of 1936-39, the country was ruled by the fascist General Francisco Franco until his death in 1975.

Spain became a member of the European union in 1986. It has 17 regions and devolution - especially to Catalonia and the Basque country - remains an issue of considerable political tension.

The population is just over 39 million.

POLITICS
Spain has a bicameral parliament - called the Cortes Generales. The upper house is called the Senate and has 257 members, while the lower house is called the Congress of Deputies and has 350 seats.

The Spanish Socialist Party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanole (PSOE) - led by Felipe Gonzales - came to power in 1982, won the next two general elections, but in 1993 only scraped through to a fourth term in a hung parliament.

The socialist period came to an end in March 1996 with the election of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) under the leadership of Jose Maria Aznan. However, the PP only rules with the support of the Catalan nationalists and the Canary Islanders.

ECONOMICS
Although Spain currently has an appalling unemployment rate of 20.5% - the highest in the EU - generally the economy is doing well. Interest rates at 4.75% are at their lowest since the days of Franco; inflation was only 2% in 1997; and growth was 3.3% in 1997 and forecast to be 3.5% in 1998.

The public sector deficit is now down to 2.3% of GDP and consequently Spain has met the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union set in the Maastricht Treaty and is scheduled to adopt the Euro in 1999.

POSTS
Unlike most other countries in Europe, posts and telecommunications in Spain have always been separate (the only other such cases in Europe are Sweden and Finland). While telecommunications is private, posts remains publicly-owned.

The Spanish Post Office employs some 65,000 staff, of which almost 57,000 are full-time. As at 1996, it had 1,747 main offices and 2,619 secondary offices.

The average number of letter items posted per inhabitant is only 108 a year (compared to 312 for the UK and 689 for the USA).

Quality of service is not good. The European Commission's Directive proposes that 80% of European mail should reach its destination within three days of posting. However, Spain achieves this for only 7 out of 17 countries.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Spain is Europe's fifth-largest telecommunications market and it is predicted to be worth £12.7 billion by 2001.

The main telecommunications operator in Spain is Telefonica de Espana. The company was founded in 1924 as a result of the merger of a variety of companies. The American ITT was a major shareholder in the company until the State became the main shareholder in 1946.

Telefonica was the first publicly-owned telecommunications operator in Europe to be privatised. In 1981, the Spanish government sold the majority of the shares (three years before BT was privatised in the UK). It is now 100% privately owned, although the Spanish government retains a "golden share".

BT set up its first European joint venture in Spain, BT Telecomunicaciones, in April 1994 - a 50-50 joint venture partnership with Banco Santander, the country's largest bank. BT Telecomunicaciones is now wholly owned by BT. The company has offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Bilbao, with a network carrying 30 nodes, delivering services nationwide. Since its launch in 1994, BT Telecomunicaciones has won more than 1000 customers and has created more than 200 jobs.

BT holds a 15.8% stake in Airtel ARS, the consortium that was awarded the second Global System for Mobility (GSM, digital cellular) licence in Spain. The consortium also comprises AirTouch (a US-based international cellular company), Banco Hispano, and Banco Santander.

In April 1997, BT and Telefonica de Espana announced that they had formed a strategic alliance to take advantage of major growth opportunities in Latin America and Telefonica was given an option to become a Concert Communications Services distributor in Spain. However, following the collapse of BT's bid for MCI, Telefonica has now formally allied itself with MCI and therefore now has no particular relationship with BT.

Other major telecommunications providers are :

· Retevision SA : The Spanish national broadcaster has teamed up with electricity company Endesa SA and STET of Italy. The company plans to use its transmission network to build a national infrastructure. It was granted a licence to operate from 1 January 1998 and is the only company permitted to offer switched voice in competition with Telefonica until 1 December 1998. Currently the company owns 8% of the market.

· Cable Europa : This is a cable television company whose backers include Spanish banks and utilities as well as General Electric company of the US and Bank of America. Currently it has a cable network in the Catalan region and has won a franchise in Valencia. It plans to build cable networks carry both television and telephony throughout Spain.

TRADE UNIONS
There are some 1.6 million trade union members in Spain and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that trade unionists account for 19% of employees. This is not a particularly high level, but the number of trade unionists in Spain has increased sharply in recent years. Spanish unions clearly have substantial support among the workforce, shown by their dominance of the works council elections and their ability to mobilise both members and non-members for industrial action.

There are two main trade union confederations: the Workers' Commissions, Confederacion Sindical de Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO), in the past close to the Communist Party, and the General Union of Workers, Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) with past links to the Socialist Party. They both have broadly similar levels of membership and support. The CC.OO has an average paying membership of 685,500 and the UGT, 670,000. In works council elections, which now take place continuously rather than at a specific time, both the CC.OO and the UGT each gain between 35%-38% of the seats contested.

There are also two important trade union groupings with a regional base, the Basque Workers' Solidarity Euzko Langilleen Alkarasuna/Slidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos (ELA/STV) in the Basque Country and the Galacian Interunion Confederation Confederacion Intersindical Galega (CIG) in Galicia. The ELA/STV is the strongest confederation in the Basque country winning more than the CC.OO and the UGT combined. However, in Galicia the CIG is in third place. The policies of both ELA/STV and CIG are strongly influenced by demands for greater autonomy for the regions from which they come. There are also much smaller national confederations, the Workers' Union, Union Sindical Obrera (USO) and the National Confederation of Labour, Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), and a number of unions in special sectors, including CSIF in the civil service.

Relations between the two main confederations have become much closer since the end of the 1980s, partially because of a loosening of political ties, and they generally act together on major issues.

All the confederations are structures on an industry basis with separate federations for different sectors such as metalworking, public services, food, drink and tobacco, and banking. However, these industrial groupings are better seen as sections of the main confederations rather than autonomous bodies. Spanish trade unionists are more likely to see themselves primarily as members of the UGT or CC.OO than their industry federation.

The ties between the two main confederations and their traditional political allies - the Socialist Party (PSOE) for UGT and the Communist Party for CC.OO have weakened greatly in recent years and there have been several clashes between party and union leaderships.

Until fairly recently, the Communications International (CI) - formerly the Postal, Telegraph & Telephone International (PTTI) - only had affiliates from the UGT. The telecommunications affiliate is called Sindicato de Telefonos - UGT. It is headed by Miguel Torres and has just over 14,000 members. The postal affiliate is called Sindicato de Correos, Telegrafos y Caja Postal. It is headed by Jose Sayagues and has about 11,000 members.

More recently, the CC.OO union has been admitted into the CI. This affiliate - which represents both posts and telecommunications - is called FETCOMAR CC.OO. It is headed by Eduardo Uribe and has just over 10,000 members.

It should be noted that the UGT telecommunications affiliate is in a section of the UGT which groups together transport and telecommunications. At its Congress in Granada on 13/18 June 1994, the then NCU was represented by Clerical Executive member Eddie Beese. At the Congress to be held in Coruna on 14/17 April 1998, the CWU will be represented by Clerical Executive member Brian Kenny.

ROGER DARLINGTON
rdarlington@cwu.org
Head of Research
3 April, 1998
RD98/036/1
RD/SKH