Gestation and first steps of the Ministry of Labor in Spain, 1920-1923

Abstract

Liberal revolutions and industrial development imposed in the nineteenth century, to varying degrees according to countries, a new framework of labor relations that, it was thought, would bring general economic prosperity and increasingly harmonious labor relations, provided that the State refrained from intervening in them. But already in the late nineteenth century, the seriousness manifested by the social question prompted us to think about the failure of the application of such principles and various countries will promote the progressive intervention of the State for its remedy. In Spain, this process towards a social interventionism - scientific, that is, planned - of the State began in 1900 with laws such as that of accidents at work and with organizations such as the Institute of Social Reforms, 1903, Labor Inspection, 1906, National Institute of Forecast, 1908, Superior Council of Emigration, 1907; Board of Engineers and Workers perfecting themselves Abroad, 1910 ... until the creation of the Ministry of Labor, 1920, a higher body that would begin its trajectory encompassing all of them