The leadership of the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organizations (CEOE) has ratified its refusal to accept the current government proposal to reduce the working day, after meeting this Friday its Labor Commission, but it will continue the social dialogue tables with the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy and the unions to negotiate the measure.
As employers’ sources explained to ‘Europa Press’, during the closed-door meeting of employers this Friday, The CEOE decided to continue without adhering to the agreement that the government put on the table to legislatively reduce the working day from the current 40 hours per week to 37.5 hours by 2025, given that the CEOE has not yet received the document that the Ministry of Labor promised to send it.
On September 9, the Ministry of Labor proposed to social agents during a meeting on the reduction of working hours the ‘PME 375’ plan, with which they sought to reconcile the positions of the CEOE and adhere to the agreement reduction in working time. The Secretary of State for Labor, who is leading the negotiations at this social dialogue table, proposed to CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme the implementation of this support plan for SMEswhich includes bonuses for new permanent jobs generated following the reduction in working hours, give priority to over 52s, women and young people
These bonuses would be intended for employment contracts concluded by SMEs to supplement the time left free by staff when the working day is reduced. The objective of this plan, according to Labor, is to ensure that the reduction in working hours to 37.5 hours per week reaches all SMEs and not just certain “privileged” sectors, such as banking or telecommunications, since it is in SMEs that most employment in Spain is concentrated and represents 90% of the economic fabric.
The proposed plan 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 time can be based is the irregular distribution of working time.because this could help certain sectors to apply this measure. Of course, it has been made clear that irregularly distributing the working day does not mean increasing it or working overtime, but concentrating it on those times when companies have the greatest need for production.
The proposal for the “SME 375” plan adds to previous proposals on the right to digital disconnection and the improvement of time recording to transform it into an electronic instrument, accessible to the Labor Inspectorate.
Routine meeting
This morning, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, 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 Labor Commission every time there is a table,” said the president of the employers’ organization in an interview with “Antena 3”. Garamendi explained that every time there is a meeting to reduce work hours, the CEOE calls a meeting to be “transparent” and explain what was addressed in the negotiations.
