The Spanish Syndical Organization (Spanish: Organización Sindical Española; OSE), popularly known in Spain as the Sindicato Vertical (the "Vertical Trade Union"), was the sole legal trade union for most of the Francoist dictatorship. A public-law entity created in 1940, the vertically-structured OSE was a core part of the project for frameworking the Economy and the State in Francoist Spain, following the trend of the new type of "harmonicist" and corporatist understanding of labour relations vouching for worker–employer collaboration developed in totalitarian regimes such as those of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the first half of the 20th century. Up until the early 1950s, it internally worked—at least on a rhetorical basis—according to the discourse of national syndicalism. Previous unions, like the anarchist CNT and the socialist UGT, were outlawed and driven underground, and joining the OSE was mandatory for all employed citizens. It was disbanded in 1977.