Transformation and Continuities in Urban Struggles: Urban Politics, Trade Unions and Migration in Spain

Spain was one of the countries at the heart of the work of Manuel Castells due to its history of urban struggles and labour–urban based alliances. It formed one of the key examples of city movements and the democratisation of urban spaces. The 1960s and 1970s were seen to throw up a range of new types of urban mobilisation and engagement—in part based on issues of internal migration and its urban and employment impact. With the changes in Spain during the late 1970s and 1980s—which were economic, political and social—this dimension of urban politics steadily fell away, although Spain continued to exhibit unique organisational forms at the level of the local state and local civil society. Civic politics were linked to local associations in a curious way, but the extent of mobilisation had changed due to the steady institutionalisation of urban and labour movements (and a weakening of their relations). However, this civic dimension began to re-emerge with the strong wave of immigration after the mid 1990s when, from being a country with one of the lowest levels of first-generation immigrants, it has become the European country with one of the highest. The paper focuses on the way migrant organisations and trade unions have organised in relation to migrants in the labour market. It shows how the legacy of previous mobilisations and structures continues to provide a framework for the politics and inclusion of migrant communities. However, it also argues that much of the new urban politics of migration has been influenced by a service delivery—leading to a similar set of outcomes that faced the indigenous urban movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This is of theoretical significance to how we see network and urban politics in relation to unions and employment relations.