The dome of CEOEthe Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organizations, ratified its refusal to accept the current government proposal to reduce the working day, after meeting its Labor Commission this Friday, but announced that it would continue the social dialogue tables with the The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy and the unions will continue to negotiate the measure.
During the closed meeting organized by the employers’ association this Friday, the CEOE decided to continue without adhering to the agreement that the government put on the table to pass by law the 40-hour working day per week current at 37.5 hours by 2025. One of the reasons given by the CEOE is that it has not yet received the document according to which the Ministry of Labor he promised to send them.
On September 9, the Ministry of Labor proposed this plan to social agents during a meeting on the reduction of working hours. PME 375with which they sought to reconcile the positions of the CEOE and adhere to the agreement on the reduction of working hours. Concretely, the Secretary of State for Labor, who is leading the negotiations at this social dialogue table, proposed to the CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme the implementation of this support plan for SMEs, called PME 375which includes bonuses for new permanent jobs generated following the reduction in working hours.
These bonuses would be intended for employment contracts which carry out the SMEs to supplement the time left free by templates when the working day is reduced. Thus, the objective of this plan, according to Labor, is to ensure that the reduction in working time to 37.5 hours per week reaches all SMEs and not just certain sectors “privileged”, as bank or telecomssince it is in SMEs that the majority of employment in Spain is concentrated, representing 90% of the economic fabric.
The proposed plan also includes specialist training for businesses to help them make this transition to 37.5 hours a week and so they can properly execute the new time recording that Labor wants to promote.
Labor continues to propose that one of the elements on which the reduction of working hours can be based is the irregular distribution of working time, as this could help certain sectors to apply this measure. Of course, it was clear that distributing the working day irregularly does not mean increasing it or working overtime, but rather concentrating it on those times when companies have a increased production need.
The plan initiative PME 375 It adds to previous proposals on the right to digital disconnection and the improvement of time recording to make it an electronic instrument, accessible to the Labor Inspectorate.
CEOE denies “emergency” meeting
The president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, also denied that the meeting of the Labor Commission convened this Friday was urgent, after the concentrations of CCOO and UGT last Thursday in front of the headquarters of the employers’ associations of different provinces.
“We convene the CEOE working committee, whenever there is a table,” declared the president of the employers’ union.
Garamendi explained that every time there is a meeting to reduce working hours, the CEOE calls a meeting to be “transparent” and explain what was discussed during the negotiations.
