Approach to a comprehensive approach to trade-union freedom

Abstract

The article focuses on highlighting the challenges posed by an integrated approach to union freedom, navigating between the social reality and its legal regulation. From this complex perspective, it analyzes the recognition in the Spanish Constitution of the right to freely unionize and the issues it needed to address regarding union unity or plurality, union activity within companies, and the judicial guarantee of union freedom protection. Additionally, the Spanish Constitution introduces in its preliminary title the institutionalization of unions and employers' associations as key elements of democracy, which raises the need to incorporate the notion of representativeness and greater union representativeness as a selection criterion and as a consolidation of essential functions of union activity.