Spain’s main trade union federations have betrayed metalworkers in Cantabria by forcing through a deal aimed at shutting down the powerful strike of 22,000 workers as quickly as possible.
Their goal is to prevent a unified national struggle of tens of thousands of metalworkers, a movement that would inevitably come into direct confrontation with the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Sumar government and the European Union (EU), as the class struggle deepens across the country.
From the outset, the main trade union federations involved—UGT, CCOO, and USO—had no intention of waging a serious struggle. In early May, as they entered negotiations over a new collective agreement with the regional metal employers’ association, PYMETAL, they came into conflict with workers determined to recover the real wage losses suffered since the last sellout in 2022, amid surging inflation driven by the COVID-19 crisis and NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine.
Under mounting pressure, they announced two isolated strike days for June 3 and 5, an entire month in advance, using the long delay not to build momentum and link the struggle with other metal workers similarly fighting new collective agreements at province level—and other sectors of workers fighting for better wages and conditions—but to defuse anger and prepare a sellout.
The trade unions were preparing to repeat the role they had played in 2022, when, after 21 days of strikes by tens of thousands of workers, they called off the walkout and signed a sellout deal imposing below-inflation wage increases. The strike culminated in the largest demonstration in Cantabria’s capital, Santander, in decades, on June 15, 2022, with mass support from the city’s working population. But the union bureaucracies ultimately demobilised the movement, handing victory to the employers, sowing anger at their suppression of militant opposition and their enforcement of the PYMETAL employer federation’s demands.
However, the powerful response to the June 3 and 5 strike days, marked by overwhelming participation that rose from 90 to 95 percent, sent shockwaves through the union leadership, the employers, and the government. In other regions, metalworkers began protesting and preparing for strike action around their upcoming collective agreements.
In Cádiz, under mounting pressure, the same unions involved in the Cantabria strike called 27,000 workers to strike on June 18 and 19, with an indefinite strike planned from June 23—a calculated move to ensure it did not coincide with Cantabria’s June 3 and 5 strike. In Cartagena, 20,000 workers are entering negotiations, while unrest is growing in A Coruña and at the Navantia shipyards in Cartagena.
Beyond the metal sector, the class struggle is deepening nationwide: 9,500 workers at energy giant Iberdrola joined an historic first strike; more than 30,000 teachers in Asturias marched in mass protests, with thousands on indefinite strike, forcing the regional Education Minister to resign. Over the weekend, thousands of doctors joined a nationwide strike against a proposed law from the government which will worsen their working conditions and damage the public healthcare system.
Everywhere, workers are fighting to claw back the wages lost over years of austerity and betrayals. The excuses used by the ruling class and the union bureaucracy—first the pandemic, then war—have worn thin.
Official unemployment has fallen below 2.5 million for the first time since 2008, before the global capitalist crisis, showing that workers are in a stronger position to fight back. Yet this has not translated into better living conditions. Wages remain stagnant while housing costs soar and mortgages are out of reach for millions. Since 2018, inflation has eaten up 89 percent of wage increases, costing the average worker around €1,410 in purchasing power due to soaring prices and the impact of non-indexed income taxes.
The primary objective of the union bureaucracy was to shut down the Cantabria strike before it could catalyse a broader, coordinated mobilisation of the working class across Spain. Such a movement would have intersected with mounting social unrest and exposed the deepening crisis of the PSOE–Sumar government.
Struggling to pass a budget, engulfed in corruption scandals involving senior PSOE officials, and facing a potential electoral defeat by the right-wing Popular Party and Vox, the government is increasingly reliant on the unions to contain popular anger. At the same time, it is pressing ahead with a widely opposed increase in military spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, while NATO is increasingly calling for an increase to 5 percent.
On June 6, the day after the last strike action received mass support, the unions consummated their betrayal by signing a fraudulent “pre-agreement” with the employers. It establishes a new collective agreement for 2025–2028, offering a 3.5 percent wage increase in the first year, followed by annual adjustments of CPI plus 0.7 percent. It also contains a gradual increase in holiday bonuses, slightly better insurance payouts, and a modest improvement to night shift pay.
These minor concessions were above all meant to deactivate workers before their strike could intersect with a far broader offensive. These figures, however, do not compensate for the estimated 4 percent in real wage losses suffered under the previous agreement imposed in 2022 by the very same union bureaucracies.
While the new deal fixes salaries above inflation, workers should be warned that should inflation, currently at 2 percent, spike again—for instance due to an escalation of imperialist war in the Middle East with an Israel-NATO assault on Iran—the employers and unions will not hesitate to renege on the agreement.
The deal was then rubber-stamped in another key mechanism used by the Spanish ruling class to suppress the class struggle: a vote in a tightly controlled delegate assembly. Bypassing any genuine consultation with the rank and file, 241 union delegates voted in favour of the deal, 27 against, and 1 null.
The unions cynically hailed the outcome as “a collective victory and a clear demonstration of the strength of the working class. Once again, it is evident that unity within the sector and coordinated trade union action are essential factors for advancing rights, preserving dignity, and securing a fair collective agreement”.
But this manipulated vote is not an expression of workers’ democratic will, let alone a victory resulting from unity, but a calculated manoeuvre to demobilise and suppress a growing rebellion.
The nature of the delegate system is entirely anti-democratic, and serves the trade unions’ policing of the class struggle. According to data from Spain’s Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, there are 320,882 registered union delegates across the country, encompassing staff representatives, works council members, and public sector personnel boards. The vast majority, around 70 percent, are affiliated with the two dominant trade unions, UGT and CCOO. These delegates enjoy extensive legal privileges, including paid hours each month to conduct union business, protection from dismissal, priority in redundancy procedures, and access to company information.
This bureaucratic framework serves as a mechanism to co-opt militant elements and create a more privileged layer of workers articulating the interests of the lower ranks of the union bureaucracy. It integrates non-affiliated workers into the union structure with a few crumbs and uses them to impose agreements like the one in Cantabria, all while avoiding open votes or mass assemblies. The unions present these delegates as the legitimate voice of the workforce, but in reality, they are instruments to suppress democratic decision-making and enforce attacks from above.
This co-optation is backed materially by the Spanish state, which finances the trade unions to serve as labour policemen. In December, the Council of Ministers approved a record €32 million in funding for the unions in 2025, an 88 percent increase from the €17 million allocated in 2024. The provision of these funds was spearheaded by the pseudo-left Minister of Labour and Sumar leader Yolanda Díaz to contain and suppress the class struggle.
Lessons must be drawn. The events in Cantabria have confirmed that workers want to fight, but that to do so effectively they need their own organisations unpoliced by the trade union bureaucracy. Workers in Cantabria should reopen their strike and coordinate combined and indefinite action with those in Cádiz, Cartagena and the other provinces to secure demands democratically decided by the whole rank-and-file.
This strategy will require workers to establish rank-and-file committees as centres of opposition to the bureaucracy’s efforts to contain and demobilise their struggle. These committees can link workers across workplaces, regions and sectors, as well as internationally through the International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. They can provide the basis for a political movement of the working class that fights not for minor concessions, but for a socialist alternative to capitalism, war, and austerity.