A few of the rights were drawn from Spanish practices.

The unions were accused of retaining numerous Spanish practices which prevent flexible working.

Main types of "Spanish practices"

Since the days of strong unions in the 1960s and 1970s through the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s Spanish practices have been increasingly removed from the workplace.

For years Fleet Street had been living with poor industrial relations - the so-called "Spanish practices" had put limits on the owners that they considered intolerable.

Moving to Central America, studies have shown that Mesoamerican intensive agricultural practices caused severe land erosion, later reversed only when wiser Spanish practices were introduced.

In 1584 another secretary of Queen Elizabeth I, Francis Walsingham, referred to Spanish practices in a way that meant they were "deceitful, perfidious and treacherous".

Despite the industrial relations of the 1970s - the so-called "Spanish practices" of the print unions - The Sun was very profitable, enabling Murdoch to expand his operations to the United States from 1973.

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, described Sir Thomas Tresham II as being "not given to Spanish practices", meaning Roman Catholic practices, which at the time were censured in England.

I voted for this report because I believe it is going to help secure a formal process; it is going to highlight something that I regarded in the past as being just a derogatory statement, i.e. 'Spanish practices'.

The infamous agreement in 1972 between Lord Aldington, on behalf of the Heath government, and Jack Jones, on behalf of the unions, effectively gave registered dock workers a job for life; partly as a result, "Spanish practices" were rife.