José Antonio Girón

José Antonio Girón de Velasco (28 August 1911,

Herrera de Pisuerga Herrera de Pisuerga is a municipality located in the province of Palencia, Castile and León, Spain. It takes its name from the River Pisuerga. According to the 2004 census (INE INE, Ine or ine may refer to: Institutions * Institut für Nuk ...

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– 22 August 1995, Fuengirola,

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) was a prominent

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

Falangist Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS) and afterwards the Fal ...

politician. He was

minister of Labor Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...

(1941–57), counselor of the

Council of the Realm The Council of the Realm ( es, Consejo del Reino) was a corporate organ of Francoist Spain, created by the Law of Succession to the Headship of the State of 1947. Within the institutional complex created to hierarchize the regime of Francisco Fran ...

and member of the ''

Cortes Españolas The Cortes Españolas ( en, Spanish Courts), known informally as the Cortes franquistas ( en, Francoist Courts), was the name of the legislative institution promulgated by the ''Caudillo'' of Spain Francisco Franco which was established on 17 J ...

''. He was one of the most heard voices against any kind of changes during the last years of

Francoist regime Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...

, taking part in the political group known as " the Bunker", for their reluctance to the

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after Franco's death. He began his political activities during his university studies in

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. In 1931 he joined '' Juventudes Castellanas de Acción Hispánica'' (Castilian Youth for Spanish Action), a small political group founded in Valladolid by

Onésimo Redondo Onésimo Redondo Ortega (16 February 1905 – 24 July 1936) was a Spanish Falange, Falangist politician. He founded the Juntas Castellanas de Actuación Hispánica, a political group that merged with Ramiro Ledesma's Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional- ...

, that would merge with Ramiro Ledesma's ''

Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (, JONS) was a nationalist and fascist movement in 1930s Spain, merged with the Falange Española into the Falange Española de las JONS in 1934. History JONS was founded on 10 October 1931 as the fusio ...

'' (Unions of the National-Syndicalist Offensive) and

José Antonio Primo de Rivera José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquess of Estella (24 April 1903 – 20 November 1936), often referred to simply as José Antonio, was a Spanish politician who founded the falangist Falange ...

's ''

Falange Española de las JONS The Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS; ), was a fascist political party founded in Spain in 1934 as merger of the Falange Española and the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. FE de las JONS ...

''. He fought in the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

on the Nationalist side and commanded units of Falangist militias. After the war, he was appointed national delegate of Veterans and in 1941 minister of Labor, when he was only 30. He deployed an intense activity, like the labor institutes for training workers and the development of the

social security system Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

('). He was removed from the Ministry in 1957 according to the liberalizing shift that Franco wished for the

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( Stabilization Plan). The previous year, Girón had decreed a salary increase that the Spanish economy could not afford. Throughout Francoism, Girón was one of the leaders of Falange and he increasingly showed his dissent, according to the Falangist principles, to many policies of the regime. Notably, he was strongly opposed to opportunism. He yearned for the Falangist 'pending revolution', as Primo de Rivera's ideas just inspired a few policies but Francoism was not really an actual Falangist regime, but a consensus of rightist and authoritarian tendencies. After Franco's death, both he and

Blas Piñar Blas Piñar López (22 November 1918 – 28 January 2014) was a Spanish far right politician. Having connections to Catholic organizations, during the Francoist dictatorship he directed the Institute of Hispanic Culture (''Instituto de Cultura ...

were the natural leaders of the "Bunker" in the ''Cortes Españolas'', and voted against the

Political Reform Act The Political Reform Act (Act 1/1977, of 4 January, for the Political Reform)memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

) * Payne, Stanley: ''The Franco regime, 1936-1975'', Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987 *

Preston, Paul Sir Paul Preston CBE (born 21 July 1946) is an English historian and Hispanist, biographer of Francisco Franco, and specialist in Spanish history, in particular the Spanish Civil War, which he has studied for more than 30 years. He is the win ...

: ''Franco: a Biography'', New York: BasicBooks, 1993 {{DEFAULTSORT:Giron, Jose Antonio 1911 births 1995 deaths People from the Province of Palencia Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War Francoist Spain Spanish Falangists Labour ministers of Spain FET y de las JONS politicians