THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND VERTICAL SYNDICALISM: BETWEEN COLLABORATION AND CRITICISM, 1951-1959

During the 1950s, in Francoist Spain, vertical syndicalism was the object of controversy from a Catholic perspective. The syndicate leaders tried to legitimize themselves by defending their conformity to the social doctrine of the Church. Some ecclesiastical sectors endorsed this claim, but others rejected it. Both the defenders of the catholicity of verticalism and the detractors of this idea agreed that it was necessary to put an end to the system of labor regulations drawn up by the Ministry of Labor and to allow autonomy to employers and workers in the negotiation of working conditions. As a result, when the Collective Bargaining Agreement Law was enacted in 1958, the verticalist leaders thought that it would put an end to Catholic criticism of their model. However, this Law, far from putting an end to the controversy, provoked an escalation of the same, with new criticisms, now directed at the insufficient representativeness of the syndicates.