page_title: Labour and Social Security Inspectorate
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Labour and Social Security Inspectorate / History
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Gumersindo de Azcarate (1840-1917)
context_page_description: The Labour and Social Security Inspectorate is a Spanish autonomous agency in charge of the control of the compliance with labour and social security legislation. It also offers technical advice and, where appropriate, conciliation, mediation and arbitration in these matters. The ITSS is, therefore, the apex of the Labour and Social Security Inspection System.
  The law defines the matters of competences of the ITSS as "rules of social order". These rules, on which the ITSS exercises the functions of inspection and, where appropriate, sanction, cover all labour matters, prevention of occupational hazards, social security and social protection, labour placement, employment, vocational training for employment and unemployment protection, social economy, emigration, migratory movements and foreigners work and equal treatment and opportunities and non-discrimination in employment, among others.
  The Inspection staff is made up of senior technical and national qualification career civil servants, belonging to the Labour and Social Security Inspectors Superior Corps and the Labour Sub-Inspector Corps.
context_section_description: The 19th century is a key century for the labour legislation and work conditions. In Spain, with the Constitution of 1812 new labour rights are approved, such us the freedom of industrial establishment and freedom to choose an occupation. During the progressive biennium (1854-1856), social conflicts that already existed in the international sphere began to be replicated in the Iberian Península, with actions such as the 1855 general strike, the first general strike in Spain. It is then that it is begin to see the need to pass labour legislation that regulates the relations between employers and employees. The first Spanish labour law is the Benot Act of July 24, 1873, passed during the First Republic for the labour protection of children, with the main objective of facilitating their education.
  From 1874 to 1931, the bourbonic monarchical restoration takes place, approving in this period the Constitution of 1876. During the validity of this constitution there are important events for the working class, such as the emergence of the UGT in 1888 (PSOE trade union), the CNT trade union in 1910 and, at the same time, the first Socialist member of parliament in the Cortes Generales, and in 1921 the creation of the Communist Party. Those elements were translated into labour regulations by the State, and with this, commissions and institutes are created solely to study labour conditions and their possible reforms. At the governmental level, the Commission for Social Reforms (1885) and the Institute for Social Reforms (1903) are founded, the direct background of the Ministry of Labour (1920).
  It will be from the Social Reform Institute where the idea of creating the Labour Inspectorate will come in 1906. Its first regulations, passed on March 1, it entrusted to the Inspectorate the monitoring of compliance with the incipient social legislation of the time (Work Accident Act of January 30, 1900, Work of Women and Minors Act of March 13, 1900, Sunday Rest Act of March 3, 1904, ...). During its early years it continues its development and expansion despite political problems and the Civil War.
  An important extension of the powers of the Labour Inspectorate occurs in 1939 with the creation of the National Labour Inspectorate Corps and the consequent integration in the same of the Social Security Inspectorate and the Emigration Inspectorate. New integrations are subsequently produced as a result of the Labour Inspection Ordinance Act of 1962, affecting the Social Prevision Technical Inspectorate and the Labour Delegates.
  In 1984 the Civil Service Reform Act reconfigured the Labour Inspectorate, named since 1981 Labour and Social Security Inspectorate, organizing the inspection function around two bodies, the Labour and Social Security Inspectors Superior Corps and that of Labour Comptrollers, as a management body. In 1985 the Inspectorate became a Directorate-General of the Ministry of Labour.
  Finally, in 1997 and according to the new territorial organization of the State that emerged from the 1978 Constitution, the Labour and Social Security Inspection System was configured as an integrated institutional set, whose functions are exercised respecting the powers of the State and of the Autonomous Communities, reason why the conditions of participation of these regions in the development of the Labour and Social Security Inspection System are established. Consequently, this Law defines an institutional system for Labour and Social Security Inspection that is jointly established within the scope of the State and the Autonomous Communities, based on their respective competences and under the principle of inter-institutional collaboration. Likewise, Law 42/1997 creates, as a management body, the Labour and Social Security Sub-Inspectors Corps, which includes the Labour Comptrollers Corps, adapting and updating its inspection functions of support and collaboration within the Labour and Social Security Inspection System in which they are integrated.
  In 2010, the central government transferred inspection powers to the Autonomous Community of 
caption: Portrait of Gumersindo de Azcárate in 1907. Azcárate was the chair of the Social Reforms Institute during the creation of the Inspectorate.
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