Second Vice President Yolanda Diaz resumes negotiations this Monday to reduce the maximum length of the weekly working day from the current 40 hours (calculated annually), to 38.5 hours in 2024 and 37.5 hours in 2025. It is called to be the great political step of the Minister of Labor. The return of the summer is full of tasks and does not seem easy at all, since the positions are at the same point as before the holidays. Díaz’s team must specify what are the flexibility measures to reduce working hours and bring together business representatives. The unions, in the same way, are waiting for these concessions and are defining their red lines.
The leader of Sumar and her team of negotiators, led by the Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Reyes, have called on the members of the social dialogue to certify an agreement in September. Of course, with the unions but also with the employers. Díaz is aware that if he manages to lead the negotiations after the false ultimatum he launched to the CEOE, his reform could land with more force on the political terrain. Because the reduction of working hours can be the subject of consensus among politicians or citizens, but faced with such a divided Lower House, the “how” to achieve it is also important.
The government is taking the lead in the tripartite negotiations after the failure of the negotiations between CEOE-Cepyme, on the business side, and UGT-CCOO, on the union side. At this new meeting, it will discuss new proposals with which Pérez Rey hopes to “reach an agreement as soon as possible.” Although they do not close on specific dates, Pérez Rey recommends moving quickly and September could be an important month.
The proposals on the table
At the meetings held in July, the government went from an ultimatum to the employers to a step backwards in an attempt to attract all parties to the reform. Positive progress and proposals were presented, but not in as much detail as both parties to the social dialogue wanted to assess the measures. In addition to the reduction in hours, the government is considering developments to strengthen the recording of working hours and the right to digital disconnection.
The proposal that the Ministry of Labor transferred in mid-July began to include the “flexibility” that companies had been demanding so much for reduce working hours and adapt to new regulations. Díaz’s department proposed to apply the reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours per week throughout 2025, and not from January 1, so that companies have a longer period of time, although this was a first approach without further development. Flexibility could also be achieved through collective bargaining, that is, by setting objectives by the government and delegating them to collective agreements updated every three years.
Among the problems that also concern the irregular distribution of 10% of the working day in the annual calculation for sectors with more intermittent productive needs. That is, an employee can occasionally work more hours and must necessarily adapt to the limit of 37.5 or 38.5 hours. In exchange, the company offers the corresponding days of rest or vacation. Digital disconnection has entered the debate to ensure that in addition to working less, professional contacts outside opening hours are avoided.
At the table, a question was also raised. exception for companies furthest from the hours target, such as hotels, commerce or agriculture. Again, this was a simple approach without development. The increase in the limit of overtime that can be worked, capped at 80 hours per year in Spain, would focus exclusively on cases of high absenteeism, according to conversations discussed in July. Regarding time recording, the Labor Party assesses the difficulty of controlling work entries and exits in certain positions, sectors or geographical areas.
New political direction for Diaz
The second vice president begins the new political year with several important files on labor and everything remains to be defined. In addition to the reduction of the working day, the other star subject is severance pay. The deputy secretary of trade union policies of the UGT, Fernando Luján, has been making a request to the European Committee of Social Rights for a year and a half to increase the cost of unfair dismissal. The resolution, published at the end of July, supports the union. Díaz, aligned with the position of the headquarters, aims to reform to focus the cost of dismissal on the objectivity of the dismissals in order to make them inadmissible.
In the new political year, and also as part of a socialist initiative, the Ministry of Labor will adapt state regulations of the Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI) to the standards set in the European directive on the matter. The latest increase set the minimum wage at 1,080 euros. Similarly, Labor will appoint a group of experts to assess the effects of the labor reform negotiated throughout 2021 and launched in March 2022. They will essentially study the effect on the temporality of the measures implemented.
