The general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, declared this Monday that the A working day of 37.5 hours per week agreed upon by government and unions is a “way station” towards the 32-hour objective. The idea is, according to Álvarez, “to look more and more like Germany and less and less like Greece.”
This was said during the presentation of the management report of the confederal bodies of the union for the last four years, during a congress in which Álvarez He should be re-elected for his third term as secretary general of the UGT.. With the motto “More and better union”, this is the third confederal congress of the UGT to be held in Barcelona, after that of its foundation, in 1888, and that of 1978, which took place after the legalization of the organization after the Franco period.
On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, dressed in a purple scarf and bow, Álvarez deplored the scourge of gender-based violence and said that They will stop the attackers on all fronts“also from the company.” It is for this reason that the union wishes to convert the work centers in a refuge zone to help women victims of gender-based violence.
“That we can take care of them, that we work with them, that we help them find ways to report, because it is violence that should not stay at home”, he said, emphasizing that they will continue to work so that companies can have a delegate who, in addition to working for equality, fight against machismo.
Álvarez assured that we arrived at this congress with “extraordinarily important management”, since never before have so many things been “achieved” in such a short time. He explained that the union is in a “good moment” because it is an organization that not only fights, but also achieves concrete results, and he mentioned the importance of unity of action with CCOO and that without the current left-wing government, many things would not have been achieved.
He mentioned the success of the labor reform, the improvement in the situation of permanent intermittent workers and the fact that our country’s retirement system is guaranteed at least until 2050. “It is enough to constantly question the pension systemwhich has only one interest, that of giving life to the private retirement system,” he declared.
Reviewing the steps taken, he assured that since 2016 the The interprofessional minimum wage increased by 75% and advocated that at the next union congress it will already represent 60% of the average salary in our country.
During his speech, he expressed his solidarity with those affected by DANA in Valencia and asked that the reconstruction process take place “with all guarantees” and that there be no more victims. “Let’s not waste time on sterile debates, Valencians want answers”he added, once again demanding consensus and a state pact to avoid tragedies like the one experienced in Valencia due to the consequences of climate change.
Alvarez asked confront the entry of the far rightbecause the world “is not going through its best times” and he recalled that in Europe there are three governments chaired by the extreme right, while condemning the wars in Ukraine and Palestine.
Likewise, he opted for a European industrial policy, for the defense of migration policies within the EU –“we will ask the European Trade Union Confederation to declare Migrants Day”he says -, or for having made the fight for access to housing one of the fundamental issues of his organization.
During his speech, he rejected the idea that unions live on subsidies and said that over the past 4 years the organization has worked to expand the presence of the UGT in the workplace, such that the number of delegates has increased by 20%.
The opening day of the congress took place in the presence of the second vice-president of the government, Yolanda Diaz; the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi; the general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo; or the president of the PP, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo; who spoke in front of the members and did not limit himself to courtesy greetings as other opposition leaders have done at previous union conventions.
