Employers reject Yolanda Díaz’s latest proposal to reduce the working day

The Extraordinary Executive Committee of the CEOE on Tuesday “unanimously” rejected the proposal of the Ministry of Labor to legally reduce the working day to 37.5 hours per week from 2025. The Ministry of Labor, led by the Vice President Yolanda Díaz, proposed a series of bonuses to companies for stable full-time employment and help for digitize processes such as time control.

“The CEOE and Cepyme, through their responsibility, cannot support this proposal. Modify by law the issues that are the subject of collective agreements, such as the reduction of working hours, and which, in fact, are already agreed bilaterally in agreements”, represents an interference in the autonomy of collective bargaining, enshrined in article 37.1 of the Constitution”, they argue in a joint declaration.

Employers’ organizations warn that if the reduction in working hours were approved by law, it would weaken the collective bargaining framework, “which has been fundamental to maintaining social peace over the last 40 years” and, in practice, ” would lead many businesses to,” Europa Press reported.

The employers’ organization stressed that “productivity will hardly increase thanks to the reduction in working hours in a productive fabric composed of approximately 98% of SMEs and self-employed people, and where the sectors which contribute the most to GDP are located “. linked, among others, to services or tourism.” “They criticize the minister for approaching the reform without taking into account the enormous differences between the different economic sectors and between the autonomous communities.”