“This is the last table of social dialogue. There will be no more calls,” said Joaquín Pérez Rey, Secretary of State for Labor, after the meeting that almost ended the a negotiation that had been kept alive thanks to assisted breathing for months. The ministry led by the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, aims for an agreement only with the unions, after the employers’ association, to reduce by law the working day to 37.5 hours per week. The Ministry of Labor speaks of an “imminent” agreement with the central companies, withdrawing the aid with which it tried to attract businessmen.
Díaz’s “number two” announced the start of the parliamentary process by submitting the text to a public hearing starting tomorrow, although the agreement has not yet been reached with the majority unions sitting at the table, the UGT and the CCOO. Pérez Rey assumes that “there is no material time to close the 38 and a half hours in 2024 and we move directly to the 37.5 hours in 2025”
The Government plans to “imminently” sign the bipartite signature with the power plants by retouching the articles, which will no longer provide aid to businesses to compensate for the reduction in working hours. In any case, the unions are lowering the optimistic tone of the Executive to close all the fringes.
Both unions referred to the proposal made by the Ministry of Labor in early July, which included essential aspects for unions such as digital time record to which the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate will have access.
The deputy general secretary for union policy of the UGT, Fernando Luján, placed particular emphasis on time recording to avoid fraud and on increasing sanctions. “We cannot tolerate businesses that consistently fail to comply finding it more profitable not to comply than to comply. This must include an increase in penalties for time recording,” he told the media.
The Secretary of State has disfigured the CEOE’s negotiating strategy, which he considers “a joke”. Employers have always argued that reducing hours should happen organically through collective agreements, where employers and unions are already present.
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