The Labour Charter: «Social Constitution» of the Francoism

This article proposes an approach to the Fuero del Trabajo (Labour Charter), the first of the Leyes Fundamentales (Fundamental Laws) of Franco’s dictatorship, which was enacted during the Civil War and constituted expression of the socioeconomic ideas of the regime. Throughout these pages it can be observed the circumstances that surrounded its elaboration, as well as the trends of thought and experiences that influenced the document’s writing, the controversy about its «constitutional» nature, its structure and content, and its significance and effects on the practical level. In the preparation of this work, it has been used a methodology that combines the exegesis of legal texts and the contrast with doctrinal contributions, the contemporaneous with the object being studied ones as well as the recent ones.