The speech of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, this Monday, at the Confederal Congress of the UGT, was already news that attracted and anticipated a lot of attention. And the Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, took the opportunity to ask the opposition leader a direct question to support one of the government’s flagship policies: the reduction of working hours. “Are you going to do the same thing with the working day as with labor reform?” Yolanda Díaz asked Feijóo, to the applause of the audience.
With a president of the PP trying to contain his face, next to the leader of the CCOO, Unai Sordo, and two seats of the president of the employers’ association, Antonio Garamendi, with a serious gesture, Yolanda Díaz asked the leader of the opposition on several occasions whether the PP “will do the same” with the future vote of the law on the reduction of the maximum working day, as it did with the labor reform. In other words, vote against it.
Díaz recalled that the labor reform took place thanks to the erroneous vote of the PP deputy, Alberto Casero. At that time, the leader of the PP was another, Pablo Casado.
Thus, Yolanda Díaz insisted to Alberto Núñez Feijóo on the need to support the reduction of working hours as a “positive” and “State” measure, for the benefit of workers.
“It doesn’t matter who governs”
A few minutes earlier, the Minister of Labor had already raised the UGT audience in applause against the budget cuts of the last Popular Party government, the one led by Mariano Rajoy. Díaz recalled the “Fridays of Sorrows”, in reference to the councils of ministers of the last financial crisis, which resulted in austerity and austerity policies, such as labor or pension reform and reductions in protection against unemployment.
“It doesn’t matter who governs,” insisted Yolanda Díaz, to loud applause, who asked UGT unionists to “defend” the progressive majority of the coalition government. “Come out democratically to defend the Spanish government. Today we have another country, other data and the data is favorable,” said the second vice president.
