
Immigration managed by the Minister of labour. One of the first decisions of the Zapatero government was transferring issues of immigration of the Ministry of the Interior to work, to better meet the needs of labour migration. "This allows us to rally the Spanish regularisation movement because they understand the issues," says Cesar Mogo Zaro, responsible for issues of immigration in the Government. The debate is not limited to the Government ranks, as is the case in France. It also extends to the social partners, who have recorded the strengthening of the inspection of labour and social security services. Between 2005 and today, the number of officers of the Labour Inspectorate is thus passed from 772 to 954. Massive regularization of May 2005, for the benefit of 700,000 undocumented "migrants", will probably not be the last, in a country that already has 3.9 million migrants (8.7 of the population). According to the Government, the Spanish economy will still be necessary, in the next few years, with an average foreign workers 200,000 more annually.
United employers Union. Before each negotiation, trade unions meet to define their priorities and present a common front against the employers. Unlike the France, where five unions are considered to be "representative", the Spain has only two major unions at the national level: the Trade Union Confederation of the workers commissions, which is slightly more than 1 million members, and the General Union of workers, with 900,000 less powerful barely registered. The basque Union Ela comes in third (100,000 members) and, as such, some national agreements signed. In twenty years, Spanish unions diverged only once. It was in March 2002 when the labour Commissions have agreed to approve the pension reform proposed by the Government but it was dismissed by the UGT to protest the lengthening of the durations of assessment. Similarly, the employers shows much more United than in France. Unlike the CGPME and Medef, Confederation representing SMEs (Cepyme) is integrated with that of large businesses (CEOE), which limits its independence.

Higher contributions for precarious contracts. The Spain is one of the only countries to modulate the unemployment insurance premiums depending on the nature of the contracts. To develop contracts, the Government has reduced the assessment on the Commission of a quarter of a point on July 1; a new identical decline will be July 1, 2008. In two years, it will be thus reduced from 6 to 5.5. The assessment missions of acting, which stood until then to 7.7, is aligned on that of the CSD, to 6.7. Such a reform has been considered in France, the last negotiation on unemployment in December 2005, but employers strongly objected. At the same time, the Spanish social partners have improved the precarious unemployment insurance and particularly agricultural workers.
Measures for gender equality. After having formed a Government comprising as many men as women, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is much engaged in the promotion of equality between the sexes, even resorting to the "positive discrimination". The law adopted in March 2006 requires businesses and the parties to have at least 40 of women in their governing bodies within a period of eight years. While the activity rates of women reached 47 (17 points more than ten years ago), only 5 of them occupy management positions. And they represent only 3 of the directors of member companies of the Ibex 35, the reference of the Madrid stock market index.