The government has ruled out increasing the salaries of over timeas demanded by the UGT union. According to the Executive, Spanish legislation already regulates the minimum amount received by workers and any improvement is a matter of collective agreements, which are mandatory. Furthermore, it points out that overtime hours worked are decreasing.
This is how the Government defended it before the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR, an organ of the Council of Europe) after the UGT’s complaint. For Moncloa, “the recognition of the right of workers to increase overtime pay not guaranteed by lawbut is left to collective agreements, so increasing overtime pay is possible under current legislation.”
For the Executive, the European Social Charter – an international treaty ratified by Spain and therefore mandatory – does not require that legislative action be taken to increase overtime pay. With this response, The government wants to avoid another unfavourable decisionafter the CEDS ruled in favour of the UGT in considering that the compensation for unfair dismissal was not sufficient.
Likewise, the Executive defends having taken measures to avoid working unaccounted overtime. Specifically, the strengthening of time recording, although the Ministry of Labor is negotiating with employers and unions a new legislative framework that improves time recording. The goal is that workers do not extend their day beyond the established schedule and that, if this happens, they see this effort rewarded.
“The measures applied by the State to control the working day (such as time control) make it possible to gradually reduce the total number of overtime hours and will contribute, in the future, to achieving the objective of Completely eliminate unpaid overtime“, states the document sent to the European Committee of Social Rights.
Furthermore, the government alleges that negotiations for reduce the working day to 37.5 hours per week On an annual basis, he will benefit from the reduction in overtime.
For the Executive, the reduction in working hours, “once agreed and transposed into legislation, must in no case encourage an increase in overtime, but rather rather the oppositeby absorbing the reduction in the ordinary working day by extending it through the use of overtime.
