Healthcare workers’ survival in times of COVID-19: The need for social dialogue

Healthcare workers were more than essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, a fact that is recognized by societies the world over. However, in many countries, healthcare workers are not satisfied with their working conditions, which has resulted in frequent protests and strikes. One such country is Spain. How can the theory of social dialogue contribute to explaining and improving healthcare workers’ conditions during a healthcare crisis such as this one? In this paper, we aim to explore what it is really like for healthcare professionals working under these challenging circumstances, and link their experience to the theory of social dialogue in order to engage in a double process of contribution: from practice to theory and vice versa. In order to do so, we first explore the real-world problems encountered by professionals, focusing particularly on cases in Spain, before reviewing theoretical approaches to the study of social dialogue in organizations, an area that has received very little attention in the revised academic literature. Finally, we show how constructive social dialogue can be an effective tool for improving working conditions for healthcare workers.