After the employers’ “no”, the Ministry of Labor is preparing for an “imminent agreement” with the majority unions to reduce the working day to 37 and a half hours per week. This was announced by Yolanda Díaz’s “number two”, the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, who explained that certain “technical adjustments” and “certain variables” of the text still need to be addressed with CCOO and UGT, but with the intention of closing the bill “as soon as possible”. In fact, this Friday the ministry will begin the process of legislating within the government.
“I announce that the government is now officially beginning the legislative process. Tomorrow we will begin with the public consultation of the bill so that, as soon as possible, the Cortes Generales can give their final approval” to the legislation, explained Pérez Rey.
The Secretary of State for Labor insisted that, “respecting all legal guarantees”, the PSOE and the Executive of Sumar “will increase the urgency” of advancing the bill with this legislative commitment, “ perhaps the most important,” he assessed: the reduction of maximum working hours from 40 hours to 37 and a half hours in 2025.
“We plan to carry out an emergency procedure within the government,” announced Joaquín Pérez Rey. “We are going to get there as quickly as possible,” he insisted, while recalling that the procedures for legislating take time. For example, there are several procedures before arriving at the Council of Ministers, such as public consultation and hearing and the request for certain obligatory reports, such as at the Economic and Social Council (CES).
Then the government will present the rule to the Congress of Deputies, where the executive will have to obtain a majority of support for the regulations before its final approval, which the unions expect until the end of next year. “Between spring and summer”, they calculate at elDiario.es.
The CCOO and UGT unions criticized the fact that employers delayed negotiations, thereby delaying the reduction of the working day. “You are not being loyal if you end up giving an excuse that has existed since January,” said Fernando Luján, deputy general secretary of union policy of the UGT.
The tension returns with the bosses
This Thursday, the Secretary of State for Labor regretted that businessmen had withdrawn from this “vintage” agreement, in the words of Vice President Yolanda Díaz. After almost eleven months of negotiations, the employers’ association CEOE categorically rejected the possibility of reducing the maximum working hours by law, demanding that this issue be addressed in collective negotiations between companies and unions. “At this point it can only be described as a joke,” criticized Joaquín Pérez Rey.
Yolanda Díaz’s “number two” highlighted the government’s willingness to negotiate, with multiple proposals and offers of aid to small businesses, which should now disappear from the equation. The Secretary of State considered that on this occasion “other interests were at stake within the employers’ association”, not those of the companies. “Surely ideological, partisan, linked to the fact of not appearing that the employers support the government’s labor policy,” he said. For their part, CEOE employers defended their right to say “no” to the Executive’s proposals.
Thursday’s meeting was scheduled for last week, but the Labor Department canceled the negotiation table due to the DANA disaster. The environmental emergency forced tensions between Labor and businessmen to be put aside, even if it only lasted a few days.
Initially, the department led by Yolanda Díaz focused its messages on unity of action and gratitude towards social agents (unions and entrepreneurs) in the management of the emergency in the Valencian Community, which involved the deployment of two packages of government measures and, among them, a new “work shield”.
However, public clashes with the employers’ association CEOE, its leader Antonio Garamendi and the business world quickly resurfaced. Mainly around two issues. The first: because employers rejected one of the measures of the “work shield”, the non-recoverable paid leave approved by the government, which allowed workers affected by the disaster not to go to work and recover their salaries. These are four causes of justified absences, from searching for missing loved ones to caring for family members.
And the second: last week’s messages from the second vice-president against companies that made their employees work during weather alerts and her “strong” warnings from the Labor Inspectorate, which is investigating around a hundred complaints. Negative messages that have not been well received in the business world, from which they insist that the vast majority of companies are focused on the devastation of their businesses and where they also highlight aid initiatives and collaboration for the recovery of the area affected by DANA. .
