The second vice president of the government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, assured Thursday that the reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours is an “opportunity” for small and medium-sized enterprises. “It is time to modernize our country,” the minister said in a speech to the media in Barcelona before meeting with the CCOO and UGT unions.
Díaz reiterated that the reduction of working hours “is not just another measure” and defended that it would mark “a change of cycle.” “It is a debate of countries, a country that must modernize and gain rights, or a country that remains in the year 83, when I was little,” she said, recalling that the working day has been “frozen” for 40 years. years.
The minister said that reducing the working day would help improve productivity and stressed that current working conditions “are not those of 40 years ago”. “The question is where we are, whether within the framework of the European mandate, looking to the future and improving productivity and the conditions of the working class, or whether we are balancing, as we have done, towards an outdated model,” the minister added.
As he stated on Wednesday, during his meeting in Barcelona with the employers’ association Pimec, Díaz stressed that the reduction of working hours must affect all sectors. “We do not want to have first and second class workers,” he stressed. “The reduction of working hours cannot affect civil servants or be part of services and finances,” he added.
Diaz assured that Wednesday’s meeting with Pimec and with businessmen from various sectors was “more than productive”, “very intense” and with “substantial progress”. “There was a lot of synthesis and agreement”, he said. This Thursday, after meeting with the leaders of the CCOO and the UGT, Javier Pacheco and Camil Ros respectively, Diaz will meet with the leader of the employers’ association Foment del Treball, and in the afternoon, the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa.
For their part, the CCOO and UGT unions have asked to “move forward” in reducing the working day. “After the statements of the employers’ association that put an end to the possibility of negotiation, what we must do is reach agreements,” said the general secretary of CCOO, Javier Pacheco. “This is not just a negotiation on a specific workplace, it is a political position of transformation,” he added. In turn, the leader of the UGT, Camil Ros, defended that it was an “important and necessary” measure and asked to “find a consensus” to move forward. After meeting with Díaz, the unions presented their mobilization calendar on Thursday to demand the approval of the 37.5-hour working day.
