Topic 1: Years of Reform 1931-33

Question 1

Industrial reforms: main reforms

Answer 1

• enforced salary increases
• legal requirement to 7 days paid leave per annum
• working day: 8 hours unless overtime was paid
• gvt introduced social security benefits
• freedom to strike without fear of dismissal or employment

Question 2

Industrial reforms: reactions from the left

Answer 2

many believed that a parliamentary democracy was essentially bourgeois form pf gvt and therefore incapable of truly radical action

Question 3

Industrial reforms: reactions from the right

Answer 3

• Azana’s reform alienated forces in Spain
  
  • consequently Azana made enemies of senior figures in the
    army, the church and among land owners
• the conservative right saw the reforms as a threat to traditional social and religious order

Question 4

Industrial reforms: impact- did it work?

Answer 4

• failed to improve harsh conditions of many workers
• urban poverty worsened by ongoing effects of Great Depression

Question 5

Agricultural reforms: main reforms (1931)

Answer 5

1931:
- max 8hr working day
- legal right to overtime pay
- wage disputes would be settled by committees (representatives from landowners to workers)
- law of municipal boundaries
- law of obligatory cultivation