Marleen Rueda from International Labor Organization Addresses MBA Students at IMI-Delhi

Marleen Rueda from International Labor Organization Addresses MBA Students at IMI-Delhi

What is the current scenario of Industrial Relations in Spain and what are the key issues and challenges associated with it? This was the area covered by Miss Marleen Rueda from International Labor Organization (ILO), sub-regional office for South Asia at IMI, New Delhi.

Miss Marleen enlightened the students of IMI about the structural change in the economy of Spain after it became a democracy in 1975. She discussed about economic liberalization, industrial restructuring and incorporation of women in labor market.

She said, "According to 2006 statistics, there are 19.8 million workers; services and construction being the most dynamic sector."

Miss Marleen further provided the information that helped the students to gain insight of Industrial Relations in Spain. "The membership in trade union is lowest in Western Europe," she said. She highlighted the issues like non-uniform electoral representation coverage and low work place representation, which is only 41% in terms of workers who declare union representation. The key issues of industrial conflicts in Spain like relatively high but still decreasing strikes activities, and increasing number of collective conflicts taken to court were exposited as well. "Spain still has capacity to absorb more immigrants, which shows why Spain is developing economically and socially. Collective bargaining is well-established practice in Spain," she said.

In the end, she generalized the whole scenario to help the HR students to gain a practical perspective about industrial relations and challenges associated with it in the current panorama. She said, "Social dialogue is a common tool to increase competitiveness and reduce temporary work among other agreements. The environment is changing."

Concluding with Miss Marleen, who joined IMI as Honorable Adjunct Professor, Prof. C. S. Venkata Ratnam, Director, IMI, observed that India and Spain have similar issues on employment, immigration and labor laws. Further, he quoted, "The physical distances may be very large between Spain and India, but the emotional bonding is too good." That indeed was the similarity between the two nation's industrial relations, Dr. Ratnam said.

Concluded.

Contributed by -
Shivanku Misra (Campus Associate),
President - Media Cell (INTERFACE),
International Management Institute, Delhi.

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