Spain’s Left Has a New Frontier: Democracy at Work |
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Spain’s Left Has a New Frontier: Democracy at Work
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz speaks about the next frontier of labor rights and how her government is making the case for workplace democracy.
The center-left Partido Socialista (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz of left-wing alliance Sumar can take credit for growing employment and rising wages, allowing them to buck wider European trends.
The horizon for Spain’s left remains more radical and egalitarian than social-democratic advance in an age of neoliberalism, however. The latest evidence is a new report commissioned by Díaz’s ministry, Two Promises to Those Who Work: Voice and Ownership, drawn up by an international commission of experts to chart how Spain might finally make good on a long-dormant constitutional mandate to extend democracy into the workplace. The proposals envision worker representation on company boards and broader collective access to ownership—ideas that represent the kind of structural reordering of economic life that distinguishes Sumar’s politics from those of its larger coalition partner.
Following a recent visit to New York, Díaz spoke with The Nation’s Bhaskar Sunkara, Gabriel Hetland, and Gianpaolo Baiocchi about the case for workplace democracy, the lessons of Spain’s recent labor reforms, and the political work of pushing a coalition partner left.
The Nation: The Spanish government recently convened an international commission to explore how to expand democracy into the workplace. What vision of workplace democracy motivated the creation of this initiative?
Yolanda Díaz: Our conviction is clear: Democracy cannot stop at the door of the workplace. We live in societies that celebrate civic participation in every area of public life, yet accept without question that once people cross the threshold into work, they lose their voice. That is a contradiction no advanced democracy should be able to sustain indefinitely.
The commission was created to confront that contradiction. It has a strong academic character, but it will lead to a political and democratic transformation of the entire country. We want to identify the concrete mechanisms that allow workers to participate in the decisions that affect their lives—from working conditions to the strategic direction of companies. And we want to anchor that debate in Spain’s own reality, in our constitutional history and in the best international experiences available.
The vision that drives us is of an economy where work is not just a factor of production, but the very center of democratic life.
The Nation: The commission’s report discusses ideas such as worker representation on company boards and collective equity-sharing mechanisms. Why do you see workplace democracy as the next frontier of labor rights in advanced economies?
YD: Our conviction is clear: Democracy cannot stop at the door of the workplace. We live in societies that celebrate civic participation in every area of public life, yet accept without question that once people cross the threshold into work, they lose their voice. That is a contradiction no advanced democracy should be able to sustain indefinitely.
Because it is the logical next step. We have spent decades building labor rights around the individual employment relationship—wages, working hours, safety, non-discrimination. All of that was essential, and the fight is not over. But there is a dimension of power in the workplace that those rights alone cannot address: who decides the direction of the company, who controls its resources, who sets its priorities.
In all advanced democracies, we have accepted that citizens should have a say in how they are governed. We have not extended that logic to the economy. And that gap is becoming unsustainable—not just morally, but politically. The rise of authoritarian populism feeds on precisely that sense of powerlessness: people feel that the decisions that shape their lives are made without them, and often against them. Workplace democracy is one of the structural answers to that crisis.
The Nation: The initiative is intended in part to fulfill Article 129.2 of Spain’s 1978 Constitution. Could you briefly explain what that provision says and why it remains so relevant today? And beyond Spain’s constitutional framework, what intellectual or international influences have shaped the commission’s work?
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