9 Work, Workers, and Labour Conflicts in the Shipyard Bazán /Navantia

9 Work, workers, and labour conflicts in the shipyard Bazán /Navantia-Ferrol, Galicia (Spain), 1950-2014 José Gómez Alén The shipyard between autarky and economic development in the 1960s The role of the state and the renewal of shipbuilding After 1939, the Franco dictatorship’s economic policy was one of autarky (self-sufficiency); the vast majority of companies with foreign capital were therefore taken under state control. This was the case with the Spanish Society of Shipbuilding (SECN), founded in 1908 with 60 per cent Span- ish capital and the rest held by the British shipbuilding firms, Vickers, Armstrong-Whitworth, and John Brown.1 Prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, SECN, known widely as “La Naval”, comprised Ferrol and Cartagena shipyards and the artillery workshops at La Carraca in Cádiz. It subsequently acquired the shipyard of Matagorda (Puerto Real, Cádiz, 1914), built the shipyard of Sestao (1915-1916), and bought Astilleros del Nervión in Bilbao (1920) and other centres of armament such as Reinosa in Santander and San Carlos in Cádiz. In 1936 the navy took up arms against the Republic and seized the yards at Ferrol and Cádiz. Almost all warships built at the Ferrol yard were designed based on Royal Navy vessels.2 Throughout the 1940s, the Franco dictatorship attempted to restore the productive sectors destroyed during the Spanish Civil War; and the reform and modernisation of shipbuilding were among its industrial priorities.3 Although the legal basis for its creation was passed into law in 1942, the 1 Jordi Mollas-Gallart notes that a British consortium of Vickers, Armstrong-Whitworth, John Brown, and Sir John Jackson and Company (civil engineers) held a 40 per cent stake in SECN. See Mollas-Gallart, Military Production and Innovation in Spain, 43-44. 2 See Ramírez Gabarrús, La construcción naval militar española, 89-91, and Romero González and Houpt, “La Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval”. 3 For an overview of Spain’s domestic and foreign policy during the Second World War, see Bowen, Spain During World War II. 282 JOSÉ GÓMEZ ALÉN formation on 11 July 1947 of the Empresa Nacional Bazán (ENB) was the high point in the process of nationalisation and concentration of Spain’s warship- building industry under the overall control of the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI), with shipyards at Cadiz, Cartagena, and Ferrol. Under the 1951 Law for the Protection of Naval Construction, the company’s main customer was the Spanish Admiralty. However, the persistence of structural problems in the post-war economy, a lack of accessibility to international markets due to political isolation, a scarcity of energy resources and raw materials, and the delay in the implementation of financial measures hindered the renewal of the sector during the 1950s.4 The realities of Cold War politics increasingly meant that US policy- makers saw the strategic importance of the Iberian peninsula. In September 1950 the United States had agreed a package of aid to Spain amounting to USD $62.5 mn and supported a United Nations resolution lifting an international boycott on Franco’s regime. In 1951, the United States resumed full diplomatic relations with Spain. The signing of the Pact of Madrid on 26 September 1953 marked the end of Spanish neutrality. The pact consisted of three separate, but interdependent, agreements between Spain and the United States making provisions for mutual defence, for military aid to Spain, and for the construction of US bases there for a renewable ten-year period, although the bases remained under Spanish sovereignty.5 The Preamble to the Pact of Madrid stated: Faced with the danger that threatens the western world, the Governments of the United States and Spain, desiring to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security through foresighted measures which will increase their capability, and that of the other nations which dedicate their efforts to the same high purposes, to participate effectively in agreements for self defense.6 Under this agreement the USA was granted the right to expand, build, and use military airfields and army and navy bases in Spain and to build secret installations. The agreement also provided for the importation of American military equipment. The Americans also provided financial support, raw 4 For an overview of the Spanish economy, see Prados de la Escosura, The Progress of the Spanish Economy. 5 For a succinct account, see, for example, Calvo-Gonzalez, “American Military Interests and Economic Confidence in Spain under the Franco Dictatorship”. 6 US-Spain Treaties in force, Department of State, Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement between the United States and Spain, 26 September 1953. WOrk, WOrkErs, AND LABOUR CONFLICTS IN THE shIPYARD BAZÁN 283 materials, oil, and technology for the military sector, which then began a slow process of modernisation. The pact was a triumph for the Franco dictatorship, bringing Spain in from the cold of international opprobrium. Franco stated in his 1 October 1953 message to the Cortes: If the Spanish nation, serving its own interests and those of Western defense, has to cooperate closely with the United States, it has done so maintaining its own ideology intact and within its incorruptible sovereignty, thus inaugurating a policy of stable friendship between our two countries.7 Unsurprisingly, as the First Secretary of the American Embassy in Madrid later noted: the reaction of the traditional, but not latent, political opposition to the Franco government – the Anarchists, Socialists, and Republicans – has been, insofar as the Embassy has been able to determine, predominantly adverse, since the US Agreements represent for them, in the first instance, the strengthening of a regime to which they are unalterably opposed.8 By the mid-1950s the United Nations had approved Spain’s membership, and by the end of the 1950s new laws to support the sector, together with low wage costs, led to the growth of the shipbuilding industry in the next decade.9 The new economic policy also demanded the transformation of labour relations. The Law on Collective Agreements (1958) opened the way to collective bargaining between workers and companies. It allowed the creation of incentives to increase productivity and put an end to wage rigidity, which until then had been unilaterally imposed by the Ministry of Labour. All the factors of change, combined with the state’s financial and legislative efforts, made possible the modernisation of shipyards. At Bazán, facilities and machinery were enlarged and improved. A new huge slipway, 260 m long and 110 m wide, where several ships could be assembled at the same time, was 7 Foreign Relations of the United States of America 1952-1954, vol. VI, Pt 2, doc no. 920, 1st Secretary of US Embassy in Spain to the Department of State, 16 June 1954. 8 Ibid. 9 Ley de Protección y Renovación de la Marina Mercante (1956); Plan de Estabilización (1959); Plan de Renovación de la Flota Pesquera (1961); I Plan de Desarrollo (1963); Decreto de Acción Concertada (1967). 284 JOSÉ GÓMEZ ALÉN built, and the new cranes installed had more carrying capacity and could move crosswise. New machinery workshops, smelting and metal-fabrication shops, and a large dock for armament afloat were built. Working conditions also improved with new toilets and dining rooms and new premises for a School of Apprentices.10 At that point Bazán was the foremost Galician company, and the group it belonged to was the largest in Spain. The growth of construction activity gradually increased, as did the labour force, rising from 5,249 workers in 1947 to 5,840 in 1960 and to just over 6,000 in 1966.11 The increase in the workforce was in part met by rural migrants in search of the job stability offered by the shipyard. Another portion of the workforce came from the company itself, which gave priority to the children of workers first entering the Work School; at 14 years old they were transferred to the School of Apprentices where they were trained for four years prior to joining different sections with the professional qualifications obtained in the theoretical and practical exams performed.12 In terms of production, the shipyard kept its traditional lines: construction of new vessels, ship repairing, and manufacture of turbines and engines. Although in the decade following the Civil War the shipyard focused on military construction, from the mid-1950s onwards it would incorporate newbuilding of oil tankers.13 Until the mid-1960s the shipyard continued to work along traditional lines despite some technical and organisational changes. The vessels designed in the drawing office still followed traditional plans, the only novelty being that small parts were made in precast blocks. Bazán was the one shipyard in Spain which, having been run by British engineers and technicians during the first third of the twentieth century, would start to apply some of the innovations already being developed in other countries. In fact, the shipyard had a certain tradition of technological innovation: it was the first Spanish shipyard to use prefabricated welded parts and autogenous welding (a process that does not require a filler metal), before going on to use electric arc welding.14 10 Ramírez Gabarrús, La construcción naval militar española, 162. 11 Carmona Badia, “La economía gallega en el periodo franquista”, 285. 12 Reglamento Nacional para el Trabajo en la Industria Siderometalúrgica de 1938 and 1946, and Reglamento de Régimen Interior de la Sociedad Española de la Construcción Naval, Factoría de Ferrol, 1939. 13 Blanco Núñez, La construcción naval en Ferrol, 129-130. 14 Houpt and Ortiz-Villajos, Astilleros españoles, 478. For welding in British shipbuilding, see Murphy, “The Health of Electric Arc Welders”, and Johnman and Murphy, “Welding and the British Shipbuilding Industry”.

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