The proposal from the Minister of Social Security, Elma Saiz, to create “flexible” medical leave allowing people to work opened a major debate this Thursday, with many reservations and some voices who welcomed the initiative. This is a still emerging approach, not very detailed, for specific situations in which “progressive insertion into work could lead to an improvement in recovery”, it is specified in Social Security.
During temporary incapacity (TI), Social Security pays the sick worker, during a work stoppage procedure, compensation prescribed by a doctor from the national health system for being absent from work.
Below we detail everything we know about this “flexible” leave initiative.
Proposal still emerging and already debated
Elma Saiz announced this Thursday morning the initiative as a “reform of temporary disability” (commonly called “disability”) and announced the “imminent” opening of the social dialogue table with social agents to respond to it. However, the ministry later clarified that it was a “working group on temporary disability” and that the proposal was “an option” in order to “open a debate” on the issue.
The working group emanates from the last retirement agreement, which committed to creating this space with social agents to “follow the evolution of IT (temporary disability) and its benefits, in addition to working on new proposals “.
This is therefore not a closed proposal from the ministry, but rather one of the initiatives that Social Security will bring to this working group to be debated with unions and employers.
“Flexible” sick leave you can work on
The initial approach is as follows: Elma Saiz stated that “there are people who, in certain processes, [de baja] “Maybe they could go to work.”
“It’s like work and retirement, for which there was very brutal regulation: either you were a worker or you were retired. With the agreement reached [de pensiones]we have made this transition from volunteering more flexible. Well, it’s the same thing when it comes to temporary incapacity,” the minister said.
In other words, it would be a new temporary incapacity formula thanks to which the person on sick leave could work without completely abandoning the situation of temporary incapacity. Social Security did not detail the approach or nature of benefits in this case, but outlined a few items, which are included below.
“Progressive” integration into work
“One of the options is to open the door to greater flexibility and study cases in which progressive insertion into work can lead to improved recovery,” says Social Security.
We do not yet know in detail what this “progressive” incorporation could look like, whether it would be partial days or a progressive incorporation formula. In any case, Elma Saiz and the ministry insisted that “health” would be the “first condition and guarantee of the worker”.
“Volunteering” and “medical monitoring”
“These proposals will always be treated voluntarily and under the supervision of a doctor,” adds the ministry.
The first element, voluntarism, has given rise to much reluctance, for example between CCOO and the Union of Labor and Social Security Inspectors (SITSS). Critical voices warn that “voluntariness” in employment relations is tainted by the inequality of power between employers and workers. In other words, although there are voluntary measures – for example a hypothetical “flexible” integration during leave – employees are sometimes forced to take them due to pressure or mandates from their bosses.
Furthermore, this “voluntariness” may conflict with the second element, the power of doctors to agree on exits or exits in disease processes according to their criteria. An example: if a doctor considers that a person can work for certain tasks, or that it would be good for their recovery, would they accept a “flexible” temporary disability or is it at the patient’s discretion?
Examples: cancer and undeclared work
Minister Saiz gave two specific examples of this “flexible” sick leave: cancer patients and patients in multiple employment situations (with two different jobs).
Concretely, he said: “There are processes, for example, someone who leaves or undergoes treatment for cancer, who perhaps voluntarily and guaranteeing their health and safety, can return to work with a temporary disability which is neither high nor low. Or, in the case of multiple activities, people who are on sick leave in one activity and can exercise certain professions in another.
With social dialogue and in a “consensual” manner
Elma Saiz and Social Security insisted that “all these proposals will be debated and accepted at the social dialogue table, as has been the ministry’s way of proceeding.”
In other words, the ministry is not showing willingness to move forward unilaterally with the proposal, nor is this a red line for a closed proposal.
Criticism for the doubts and concerns generated
The minister’s announcement was poorly received in many areas due to its form, as it is a proposal without specificity on an issue as delicate as medical leave. Faced with the increase in temporary disabilities, particularly those related to mental health, employers are continually calling for a reduction in sick leave and this is a request that they also reiterate in the PP.
Thus, after Saiz’s announcement, the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, distanced herself from the proposal. “Temporary incapacity has only one reason: to protect the health of workers. There are no more options or reasons. Neither flexibility nor partiality, we do not play with health,” he said. Podemos called this measure “Mercadona’s wet dream.”
The majority unions, CCOO and UGT, called on the Ministry of Social Security to present the proposal to the negotiating table. “Talking about volunteering in these situations raises many doubts. If there is a computer situation and the doctor who directs the recovery process believes that it must be maintained, a proposal like that is shocking,” said Carlos Bravo, social protection secretary of CCOO. UGT sources stressed that “what this flexibility contains is a kind of compatibility between work capacity and incapacity. We will see what they present to us, but conceptually it seems very complicated to us that both situations occur at the same time in the same patient.
The employers’ organization, for its part, was in favor of a debate on this question and, in the absence of details, it evaluated it “positively”. Employers highlighted the need to discuss and reduce “absenteeism”. “A question that worries us a lot,” said CEOE leader Antonio Garamendi.
Health believes this can be “beneficial”
For its part, the Ministry of Health reacted more favorably to the initiative. Always starting from the principle of placing the health of the worker at the center and recalling the competence of health professionals to manage sick leave, the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, declared that the proposal “well planned » can “be beneficial”. “ ” for some patients.
“Anyone who has had a primary care consultation can identify scenarios in which this measure, well implemented and with the responder at the center, can be beneficial,” Padilla said. “An example: patients on sick leave for 9 months due to a process of generalized anxiety or major depression, for whom complete adherence from the start can cause more damage to their recovery than doing so partially and gradually “, he indicated.
Or, another example, for “a person with a part-time job with teleworking and another with a part-time job with a physical workload component, there may be a disability process that allows them to exercise the ‘one but not the other’.
Although starting from a position of initial suspicion, the Ministry of Labor itself also considered that there could be “measures that can improve the lives of these workers, in very specific cases such as, for example, the staggered incorporation after a long-term work stoppage. ” duration”.
“We are already addressing this subject, in fact, in the Social Dialogue Table which addresses the prevention of occupational risks and which has been working for several months,” explain Labor sources. Yolanda Díaz’s team gives an example similar to that mentioned by Minister Elma Saiz: “Someone who has undergone treatment for cancer may not be able, on medical prescription, to work full time. These are cases that we are already dealing with at the aforementioned dialogue table.”
