‘For the workers but without the workers’: industrial accident management under the Franco dictatorship (1939-1966)

ABSTRACT

In the first decades of this century, Spain still has a high industrial accident rate compared with other Western European countries. Within the framework of the most recent historiographical theses, this paper analyses the historical roots of this situation, focusing on the institutions that historically managed industrial accident insurance coverage, especially during the first decades of the Franco Dictatorship (1939–1966). This study examines how Francoist social policy favoured employers by prolonging the control of this insurance in the hands of private institutions, insurance companies and, above all, employers’ industrial accident mutuals, which excluded worker participation in its management and promoted this social coverage as a business. Archival and statistical documentation makes it possible to demonstrate that entities such as the employers’ industrial accident mutuals managed a substantial volume of the premiums paid by employers, which brought them significant profits through the refund of part of these premiums in the form of rebates. This was possible because at the same time they destined no or negligible funding to prevention and rehabilitation of workers. Ultimately, employers’ management of this insurance allowed them to meet this obligation cheaply, while maintaining a historically high accident rate in Spain and hindered the development of a culture of prevention of occupational risks.

KEYWORDS:

• Industrial accidents
• employers´ mutuals
• social risks
• Europe
• Spain
• Francoism
• twentieth century

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Law of Trade Union Unity (Ley de Unidad Sindical) may be consulted in the BOE (Boletín Oficial del Estado, Official State Gazette), 31 January 1940.

2. MITRAMISS Archivo del Ministerio de Trabajo, Migraciones y Seguridad Social [Archive of the Ministry of Labor, Migrations and Social Security], Mutuas 27A y 26B, Dirección General de Previsión, 1885–1963, La Metalúrgica.

3. BOE, 189, 8 July 1939, p. 3729.

4. BOE, 215, 3 August 1939, p. 4224.

5. MITRAMISS, 1968/3185, C-123 D. G. Previsión. Asesoría General y Técnica de Previsión Social del Ministerio de Trabajo (1939–1960), Expedientes accidentes laborales, 1948–1955, 5 legs.

6. BOE, 29, 29 January 1940, 728; BOE, 323, 19 November 1955, pp. 6951–53.

7. Memoria de Instituciones Penitenciarias [Memory of Penitentiary Institutions], 1947, p. 123.

8. El País Newspaper, Los 60 muertos de Monfragüe que Franco ocultó [The 60 dead men in Monfragüe that Franco hid] published on 22 October 2015. Link: https://elpais.com/politica/2015/10/21/actualidad/1445458030_939038.html (accessed in October 2019).

9. BOE, 300, 27 October 1943, pp. 10,365–6.

10. BOE, 359, 25 December 1955, 7825 and BOE, 197, 15 July 1956, pp. 4614–34.

11. BOE, 255, 12 September 1942, pp. 7054–5.

12. Archivo INGESA (Archivo del Instituto Nacional de Gestión Sanitaria, National Institute of Health Management Archive), Ponencia sobre CNAT, Actas 1949. Actas del 10 al 29 desde el 11 de enero al 27 de marzo de 1954, Sig. 252.

13. Ibid.

14. Regla 6 de la Orden de 13 de Mayo de 1958 por la que se aprueba la instrucción provisional para la exacción del Impuesto de Sociedades (Rule 6 from the Order 13 May 1958 by which the provisional instruction for the exaction of Corporation Tax is approved). BOE, 117, 16 May 1958, p. 892.

15. BOE 5206, 11 July 1941, p. 5205.

16. MITRAMISS, 27A y 26B, Dirección General de Previsión, Mutuas 1885–1963, La Metalúrgica, 5 legs.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. BOE, 34, 3 February 1940, pp. 914–24.

21. BOE, 274, 30 September 1944, p. 7260.

22. BOE, 208, 26 July 1944, p. 5707.

23. BOE, 242, 11 February 1950, p. 620.

24. BOE, 77, 18 March 1941, pp. 1873–75.

25. BOE, 361, 26 December 1956, 8103–8106; BOE, 287, 13 October 1956, pp. 6497–8.

26. BOE, 148, 22 June 1959, pp. 8873–5.

27. BOE, 128, 30 May 1961, pp. 8138–46.

28. BOE, 312, 30 December 1963, pp. 18,181–90.

29. According to data from Eurostat, Link: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database (accessed 10 February 2020).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation -State Research Agency- for the project entitled ‘The historical keys of hospital development in Spain and its international comparison during the twentieth century’, Number. [RTI2018-094676-B-I00].

Notes on contributors

Margarita Vilar-Rodríguez

Margarita Vilar-Rodríguez is Senior Lecturer in Economic History at Universidad de A Coruña. Her main lines of research deal with labor market and workers’ living conditions in Spain, especially under Franco´s dictatorship, and with social insurances in Spain, especially on health and industrial accidents.

Jerònia Pons-Pons is Professor of Economic History at the Universidad de Sevilla. Her research focuses on the economic history of industrial insurance and on social insurance, especially on health and industrial accident insurance in Spain.