This Wednesday, the Prime Minister signed with union and employer leaders the latest success of the social dialogue, the new pact on pensions concluded this summer. But the text must now take on a new challenge, the result of the narrowness of the executive’s parliamentary margin: convincing several of its investiture partners. ERC, EH Bildu and BNG insist that they are now “no” to the agreement “unless there are changes”, say the political groups. All three criticize the government for the “lack of dialogue” with its parties.
The pact in question facilitates partial retirement, further encourages deferred retirement and aims to regulate access to early retirement for particularly arduous or dangerous professions. Although these aspects have some drawbacks, the most controversial issue is another. The three parties refuse to encourage mutual insurance companies to carry out tests and treatments on workers’ sick leave, even though the text specifies that exits and exits remain in the hands of doctors in the public health system.
The main problem: mutual insurance companies
“Giving more power to mutual societies goes against our political positioning,” says Jordi Salvador, ERC MP, who points out that, although they are formally collaborating entities of Social Security, they operate as employers’ organisations. “We all know who they serve,” he criticises.
In the same sense, they are expressed in BNG. The parliamentarian Néstor Rego emphasizes that the government defends that the recovery of workers “will be faster and better”, being able to undergo tests and receive treatments in the resources of the mutuals and thus avoid public health waiting lists. “It will be faster, but it will not be better”, criticizes the Galician deputy.
At EH Bildu, they also express their doubts on this point and demand that the government “give guarantees that the public health system is not decapitalized” with these references nor that there is “double spending” for public coffers.
The majority unions, CCOO and UGT, defend the measure as positive, allowing a faster return of workers, and as an option to use the resources of mutual funds, which are financed with public money through social security contributions. In addition, they insist, the exit would remain in the hands of the doctors of the public health service.
“It is neither privatized nor gives more power to the mutuals. It is a very limited agreement for which a follow-up is agreed to see how it works,” emphasizes Carlos Bravo, secretary of public policies and social protection of CCOO.
Early retirement for arduous jobs
The social agreement also includes a system to guarantee access to early retirement without reduction of pensions for particularly arduous or dangerous professions, which has been blocked for more than a decade. Which professions? Those who can activate this process are the most representative trade union, employer and independent organizations, as well as Social Security, automatically.
The three nationalist formations, in the case of EH Bildu with a great influence of the ELA and LAB unions and in the case of BNG of the CIG, also show their rejection of this new procedure. They also doubt that this early retirement will affect more precarious sectors and with less capacity for mobilization.
At EH Bildu they propose “that we can even see individual formulas” to estimate the specific cases in which a worker demonstrates this difficulty or danger, regardless of the sector to which he belongs.
From the ERC, they vehemently reject another point: the bonus for companies that reduce their accident data, which existed before 2019, with the PP government. “Why do we have to pay companies with contributions to do their job? It is their responsibility to protect the health of workers,” recalls Jordi Salvador.
A vote without the main obstacles
The three nationalist parties insist that the government must enter into dialogue with them to negotiate amendments to modify the social agreement, which has not happened so far, say sources from ERC, EH Bildu and BNG. Junts, for its part, has not yet revealed its position on the agreement.
In any case, it turns out that the most reticent of the investiture partners should not be included in the legal text that will be submitted to the Congress of Deputies. From the Ministry of Social Security, it is explained that “it is a principle of agreement, whose general lines have been agreed and whose elaboration of the legal text must be finalized in the coming weeks.”
The issues “require diverse and different normative regulations, ranging from regulations to collective agreements at the regional level. In this sense, the Government always works with rigor and legal certainty,” explains the team of Minister Elma Saiz.
Thus, the agreements with mutual insurance companies will be articulated through social security agreements, with the Autonomous Communities (competent in health matters) and with mutual insurance companies. And, for its part, the terms of access to early retirement from arduous or dangerous jobs will depend on the evolution of the regulations.
The government partners would thus find themselves in the position of rejecting a legal text that facilitates, among other things, partial retirement, due to reservations about points of the social agreement that are not present in the standard voted in Congress. The unions are convinced that a vote like the one on labor reform will not happen again and they emphasize the positive nature of the agreed changes, confident that they will be supported by these progressive formations.
