14 Jul. () –
The Ministry of Labour and Social Economy will meet with unions and employers in a new meeting on Wednesday 17 July to move forward in the social dialogue table to reduce the working day, after bringing positions closer to CEOE.
This new meeting will likely be attended by the usual negotiators from CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme, and will address the proposal that the Ministry of Labour submitted to the social agents at the last meeting, with which it sought to get the employers’ association to abandon its “sit-down strike”, according to the minister of the sector, Yolanda Díaz.
These criticisms have been frequent in recent weeks by the Minister of Labour and by UGT and CCOO, as they have repeatedly accused CEOE and Cepyme of not bringing any written proposal to the social dialogue table since it began in January of this year and, in addition, they have assured that the employers’ association has not even clarified that it is in favour of increasing working time from the current 40 hours per week to 37.5 hours in 2025 without reducing wages.
This situation led the Ministry of Labour to give employers a week to present their proposals in writing regarding this issue. However, CEOE and Cepyme did not comply with the Ministry’s demand, headed by Yolanda Díaz, and so the Ministry ended up submitting a proposal to employers to move forward on the issue, which involves giving companies more room to adapt to the irregular distribution of working hours.
In this way, the Ministry of Labour proposed, in the last meeting with social agents, that the 10% of the annual working day that companies can currently distribute irregularly should refer to the working day they had when the law came into force and not to the new reduced working day.
“This provides a greater margin for irregular working days, which we believe could be useful for companies to move as soon as possible to the new 37.5-hour module,” said the Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey, who indicated that the measure would benefit sectors with inconsistent production cycles throughout the year, such as agriculture or some activities related to the hospitality industry.
The Ministry also introduced a new proposal that involves an aggravating factor for those violations related to working hours that may cause harm to workers’ health.
Pérez Rey said that, in this last meeting between the Labour Department and social agents, the employers’ associations offered a greater specification of their proposals, which include ensuring that the flexibility measures are not purely temporary and achieving a greater transitional margin of adaptation to the 37.5 hours.
In this regard, Yolanda Díaz has recently stated that “there is room” to reach an agreement on the matter and has stated that “she will not leave the table” until it is reached. “We have done much more difficult things,” she said last Friday.
CEOE SUGGESTS THAT IT COULD BE NEGOTIATING THE REDUCTION OF WORKING HOURS
For his part, CEOE president Antonio Garamendi has indicated that the employers’ association could be willing to negotiate. “We can be working on it right now,” Garamendi said in relation to the reduction of working hours during the CEOE Assembly in 2024.
In the same, he acknowledged that the employers’ association “remains willing” to negotiate, but that this does not mean having to “always” say yes. “There is nothing more democratic than saying yes when you want to say yes and no when you want to say no,” he said.
Despite his position closer to negotiation, Garamendi said at the meeting that reducing the working day would mean “giving away” by decree almost 12 days of paid vacation per year by the employer to each worker. “Companies have held out. I don’t know how much longer we can hold out,” he added.
UNIONS WARN OF PROTESTS IN AUTUMN IF THE SITUATION IS BLOCKED
For his part, the general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, has warned that if the situation becomes blocked, the union will call for protests in the autumn. “There will be union mobilisation without any doubt,” he stressed.
Sordo has expressed his openness to negotiating the entry into force of the reduction in working hours if the measure is transferred to a bill this summer, although he warned that this position does not involve “delaying the reduction in working hours until next year.”
Along these lines, both CCOO and UGT have indicated that they will accept flexibility in the Government’s proposals, but only if the timeframes are “reasonable.”
For his part, the Secretary General of UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has asked the employers’ association to distance itself from the “martyrdom” aspect in relation to the reduction of work, but has acknowledged that the unions want an agreement in which CEOE is a part.
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