My Research Project and a Brief Encounter with History

I have been receiving questions over the nature of my research in Spain, so I will outline my research question, the history of immigration law in Spain, and my research methodology, and information about the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, my institutional sponsor. I added a story at the end of this posting that describes an interesting experience at the University.

The Genesis of my Research Project

Generally speaking, I will be studying how developments in immigration law impact the rights of undocumented immigrants to join labor unions in Spain. The topic/question emerged from research I conducted at Macalester for my Political Sociology class that I took during my junior year. At the time I was studying how conflicts between immigration and labor law impacted the rights of undocumented immigrants to receive the right to join unions under the Wagner Act of 1935.

Specifically, I analyzed how the clash between laws with universal scopes of rights – i.e. labor laws, which grants the rights to organize to all workers in the United States – and laws with particular/narrow understanding of rights – i.e. immigration laws that make citizenship a prerequisite to receive the right to work in the United States, vote, etc – created legal precedents that would expand or narrow the right of undocumented workers in the American legal system.

While I could go into further details, I will simply note that a court case from 1998 set the precedent that employers did not have the right to prevent any and all workers from joining labor unions; any effort to use a worker’s citizenship status counted as an action that violated the Wagner act. In this sense, the universalism present in labor laws can supercede the narrow scope of immigration laws, giving undocumented immigrants access to a greater set of rights in the United States.

After many years, I began to wonder how these sorts of legal issues would play out in other countries. Given that I speak Spanish and wanted to travel to Europe, I decide to apply for a grant to study this issue in Spain. The country is ideal for three reasons: Spain has a relatively short history of immigration legislation in the post-Franco period; the country has witnessed a substantial increase in immigration over the last 10 years; and a fairly liberal stance towards granting rights to undocumented immigrants that counters the anti-immigrant policies of centre-right governments in Europe. It is the last point that drives my research.

The History of Immigration Law and Undocumented Worker’s Rights in Spain

In the year 2000, the incumbent president José María Aznar and the right wing Partido Popular (“PP”) passed a law known as the Ley Orgánica 8/2000, de 22 de Diciembre. Whereas previous immigration legislation passed in 1986 and 1998 guaranteed all immigrants the right to join labor unions, the new law stripped undocumented immigrants of these rights. In this manner, the law was significantly stricter than the law passed in 1998, which limited certain rights to Spanish while protecting certain legal benefits – i.e the to belong to a labor union – for all individuals in Spain.

Following the 11/3/04 terrorist bombings in Madrid’s Atocha metro stop, the Spanish people elected José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the left wing PSOE Partido Socialista de la Obra Española (“PSOE” or “Socialists”) as the new president of Spain. The political climate and attitude towards immigrants experienced a major shift as a result of this change in administrations. Whereas the PP was adamantly anti-immigrant, the PSOE and Zapatero were strong supporters of immigrant’s rights and the integration of immigrants into Spanish society. The administration’s official stance on the issue helped the PSOE legislate a new law in 2007, which reinstated the right of undocumented immigrants to join labor unions and other legal benefits.

The history of immigration law and its relationship with the rights of undocumented workers to join labor unions will form the center of my research.

My Research Methodology

My research methodology generally follows a schedule that sets deadlines for each phase of my research.

First I will use academic texts and copies of each individual law to study the entire history of immigration law. Once I have a firm understanding of this history, I will see how these developments reflect observations of socio-legal theorists. I will subsequently pick the theories that apply to the development of a specific law and form a theoretical framework for historical socio-legal analysis.

With a particular piece of legislation in mind, I will use the framework to study how different factors – social, economic, political, and legal/EU rulings - impacted the development of the law. I will subsequently develop an argument based on the analysis of the development of the specific law. To support this analysis, I will interview members of labor unions, judges, party members, and pro immigrant NGOs to gain a better understanding of the social dimensions of these developments.

The final paper will subsequently feature an introduction, an outline of the history of immigration laws in the Spanish legal system, a literature review/theory section that introduces my argument over the development of a specific law, an analysis of the development of said law, and a conclusion.

Background on my Institutional and Academic Advisors

As I noted earlier, I will be working at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (“UC3M”). The University was founded in 1989 as an institution focused on the development of individuals with a strong intellectual and professional background who will make positive contributions to society. The university’s main campus – and the center of my research – is located in Getafe, a suburb 40 minutes from the southern edge of Madrid. The distance between the University and Madrid is akin to the Claremont Colleges and LA, Bard/Vassar and NYC, Carleton and the Twin Cities, etc.

Over the course of my research, I will be working under the guidance of Diego Blázquez Martín, an associate professor at the University’s Instituto de Derechos Humanos who focuses on socio-legal research on the intersection between society, culture, and the development of human rights law.

How I came to find Prof. Blázquez merits an explanation.

The Fulbright Program requires all researchers to find a sponsor for their work in their country of choice during the application process. Seeing that I have never visited Spain and lacked contacts in the country, I emailed every single law and sociology professor in Madrid with a summary of my research topic. Prof. Blázquez was kind enough to send me a response that stated his interest in sponsoring my research. Given my unconventional methods of searching for a sponsor for my research, I am grateful and excited to work with an enthusiastic, patient, and warm individual who is dedicated to my research in Spain.

A Brief Encounter with History

During our second meeting this past week, Prof. Blázquez introduced me to the former rector of the University, Gregorio Peces-Barba Martínez. During our brief encounter, Sr. Peces-Barba explained the importance of understanding the differences between each dialect of ‘Spanish’ in the country.

After the conversation, Prof. Blázquez explained that Sr. Peces-Barba was a member of the cohort that wrote the Spanish Constitution in 1978, Los Padres de la Constitución. Each of the seven members of the group represented a major Spanish political party, many of them banned under Franco’s dictatorship. Sr. Peces-Barba represented the PSOE, which sent its leader to meet with the King of Spain, Juan Carlos II and the head of the PP to mark the start of a new democratic era that promoted unity among the Spanish people, regardless of their political affiliation.

Some people might an apathetic reaction to the former rector’s choice of conversation with a postgraduate researcher. But how often does one receive a brief lecture on this topic from an individual who wrote a constitution that helped a country successfully transition from a repressive dictatorship to a major democratic government in Europe?