This Friday, the Ministry of Labor explained several of its proposals at the negotiating table aimed at reducing the working day to 37 and a half hours per week. As a novelty, it extends aid to small businesses (SMEs) with fewer than 10 workers due to the new working day: it proposes not only to subsidize new permanent contracts, but also the conversions of existing partial contracts into long-term jobs. full time. The ministry also proposes to toughen sanctions for non-compliance with time recording, with individual fines and other serious abuses in working hours.
The Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, appeared at the end of the social dialogue meeting, although it was not planned. Pérez Rey outlined several of the measures Labor has proposed as part of negotiations to reduce the legal workday.
“There are proposals in black and white, we are negotiating with the newspapers and we are waiting for the employers’ organizations”, declared the “number two” of Vice-President Yolanda Díaz, after complaints from employers regarding the lack of documents on the table. Pérez Rey insisted on his conviction that “there can be an agreement” with employers and unions.
The unions, however, clarified that the ministry had presented them with the new aid document for SMEs at the end of the meeting called this morning, without explaining the details, and that they were therefore not able to give a evaluation on the subject. CCOO and UGT maintained that “there is no progress” in the negotiations, since the employers remain in their refusal to legislate on the reduction of working hours and undertake that this question will be addressed only in agreements and understandings between companies and workers.
Aid and creation of “65,000” jobs
The Secretary of State for Labor explained that the SME Plan 375 was presented in writing, which contains bonuses for new permanent hires in companies with fewer than 10 workers that have to hire more people due to the application of the working day 37 and. half an hour per week.
In addition, and this is the novelty of this Friday’s offer, it is proposed to reduce contributions for part-time contracts which become full-time thanks to the new legislation. Pérez Rey recalled that commerce and hospitality have a large number of contracts of this type, two sectors where microSMEs abound.
The aid would be applied in the first six months from the entry into force of the legal reduction of the legal working day and would last for one year, according to the document presented and to which elDiario.es had access.
However, Joaquín Pérez Rey did not detail the amount of this aid in social security contributions, which the document does not specify either. In previous tables it was suggested that they could reach 100% in certain cases, such as hiring women, young people or people over 52 years old (in this last document it indicates 55 years old), but Pérez Rey said he is waiting for contributions from employers and unions to clarify this figure.
Labor however calculates the number of businesses it expects “80,000 businesses and self-employed workers” to benefit from the measure and estimates that jobs equivalent to around “65,000” full-time contracts would be created. The Secretary of State for Labor insisted that reducing working hours can be a “stimulus for the creation of quality jobs”.
Hiring aid is subject only to permanent employment and it is specified that there is an obligation to maintain it for three years.
Individual and more severe sanctions
Labor also insisted on the fact that “the scope of negotiation” of this future legislation includes the reduction of the legal working day, but also the reform of time recording and the realization of the right to digital disconnection.
Regarding time control, Joaquín Pérez Rey explained that the ministry’s proposal requires that it be electronic (and not paper), “that it is not easily manipulated” and that it be “interoperable by the Inspection of work”, so that she can verify its suitability. compliance. The Secretary of State added that he would take into account “certain singularities”, both in certain labor relations and in certain sectors.
In addition, Labor believes that it is necessary to toughen sanctions in this area, as they are currently “clearly insufficient”. Joaquín Pérez Rey detailed two elements. On the one hand, “the most serious offenses in time recording must be committed by the worker and not by the company, as we did in the labor reform” with temporary contracts, said the Secretary of State. From now on, the heaviest fines amount to 7,500 euros per company, regardless of the employees concerned.
Secondly, beyond the working hours recording tool, Labor is also proposing heavier sanctions for non-compliance with schedules. “There must be an aggravating circumstance for the most serious violations of working time, which endanger the lives of workers,” Pérez Rey said. “When working time kills, offenses must be sufficiently dissuasive so that no one thinks of endangering the life of a worker.”
