@article{2014:khler:spanien_m,
title = {Spanien: Massenmobilisierungen gegen das Austeritätsdiktat},
year = {2014},
note = {Spain, together with its Southern European neighbours Portugal and
Greece, is among the countries hardest hit by the ongoing crisis. The
severe austerity policies introduced in 2010 have increased the
economic and social problems. The trade unions and many civil society
movements have been trying for years without success to mobilise
against the anti-social austerity measures and the erosion of workers'
rights. The evident failure of austerity has had no political
consequences. The widely supported strike and protest actions tend to
run out of steam and thereby further weaken the trade unions and civil
protest groups. At the same time, the government has been pursuing a
neoconservative counter-offensive previously unprecedented in Spanish
democracy. The Spanish trade unions are now facing a difficult
strategic choice: The ongoing structural economic crisis and the
effects of austerity policy have eroded unions’  traditional
structural, organisational and institutional power resources. Should
they defend their still far-reaching institutional participation and
workplace representation rights to reinvigorate them and thereby
create more favourable conditions for the future, or should they build
alliances with social protest groups and assume a leadership role as
an extra-parliamentary opposition?},
journal = {WSI-Mitteilungen},
pages = {369--377},
author = {Köhler, Holm-Detlev and Jiménez, José Pablo Calleja},
volume = {67},
number = {5}
}