“Reducing the working day is the debate of our time.” Calling for a “new international labor alliance,” with more rights and shorter workdays, Second Vice President and Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz inaugurated the International Labor Congress on Wednesday evening, an event organized by his ministry, which brings together on November 13 and 14 in Madrid labor leaders from several states, such as Slovenia, Guatemala and Palestine, among others, politicians, trade unionists, expert jurists and intellectuals on the issues work at the international level.
After a first minute of silence for the victims of DANA in Valencia and Castile-La Mancha, Vice President Yolanda Díaz took charge of opening the inauguration of the Congress, which was attended by the leaders of the majority unions in Spain, Unai Sordo (CCOO) and Pepe Álvarez (UGT). In addition, the inaugural session was marked by a video intervention by the former Director General of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Juan Somavía. Democratic US Senator Bernie Sanders’ meeting was also planned, but it did not take place and was postponed until tomorrow, according to the Labor Party.
Yolanda Díaz demanded that the organization of workers and unions continue to conquer labor rights, in the face of neoliberalism and the desire of certain big companies to limit democracy. “There are monopolies that act like governments and compete with governments,” he warned, which is why he called for progress toward greater democratization of the economy.
“Democracy must enter businesses,” said Díaz, who discussed several options to achieve this. From the ability of workers to organize through strikes, collective bargaining and social dialogue with governments, but also from one of its political proposals at the national level, that workers can enter the boards of directors large companies.
The distribution of wealth between capital and labor has been another of the ways indicated to develop democracy in the economy, emphasized Díaz, where he highlighted his proposal to reduce the working day.
“We are the heirs of people who worked hard and gave their lives 140 years ago to reduce the working day. We come from La Canadiane,” recalled the Minister of Labor, about the milestone in the global trade union movement which placed our country at the center thanks to the battle won by the 8 hours of daily work of the company’s workers. electric La Canadiane de Barcelona in 1919. “We must follow in its wake,” says Yolanda Díaz.
“We have intellectually defeated neoliberalism”
Díaz celebrated several of the policies approved in recent years as Minister of Labor, such as the increase in the minimum wage, labor reform and ERTE during the pandemic.
“We have shown that crisis management does not necessarily have to be the neoliberal vision,” underlined the second vice-president, who shared with the leaders of the majority unions her role in “the intellectual defeat” of neoliberal policies. “We defeated them intellectually,” Yolanda Díaz said of minimum wage increases and “apocalyptic” visions of massive job losses.
For their part, the general secretaries of the CCOO and the UGT stressed the need for a “new social contract”. With which, beyond the speeches and the “history” which centers politics, new rights and facts are consolidated in which the working classes “improve their material living conditions”, for example through an increase in their salaries or a reduction in their working hours, underlined Unai Sordo (CCOO).
“The new social contract is the one that must redistribute, after decades of struggle, once again the balance between the labor factor and capital, a balance that has been broken despite our efforts,” said Pepe Álvarez (UGT).
Díaz and union leaders welcomed the debates that will take place this Thursday and which will highlight certain challenges, such as the effects of digitalization and climate change, among others.
