Reopening the debate on the necessity of a law of strikes in the essential services

Abstract

In these last years, the debate on the approving of a law of strikes in the essential services has been renewed more assiduously. The summons of various general strikes, as well as its development in some of the more strategic sectors and specially-controversial for the citizens, expose the inefficacy of a previous regulation from that of the constitution which, notwithstanding its jurisdictional clarification, fails to give satisfaction to the economic and political changes suffered by our society after the last thirty-five years since its entry into force. Both the scientific doctrine as the constitutional jurisprudence have been persistent in their review on the prejudices caused to the practice of the fundamental right to strike, emphasizing the need for the Government, carrying out with the express command collected in the article 28.2 of the Spanish Constitution, to activate the relevant parliamentary mechanisms to legislatively develop the establishment of the strike. In turn, the future regulation will only be current and coherent with the new social reality if it accepts, in its articles, specific mechanisms suitable to make compatible the strike action with the rest of the constitutionally rights recognized for the citizens. Granting Labour and Business Organizations a broader capacity of intervention in the arrangement of the conflict, or allowing consumers and users of the affected essential services, to express their opinion on that subject, may be some of those suitable mechanisms.