The Government will hold a meeting of the pensions committee tomorrow, after the latest proposal on partial retirement

The Ministry believes it is “close” to an agreement on pensions, but unions regret the lack of written proposals

Jul 21. () –

The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration will hold a social dialogue table on pensions again on Monday, following the latest proposal launched by the Government to extend the possibility of early retirement from 2 to 3 years in order to access general partial retirement, although with some conditions.

The last meeting of the negotiating committee on Social Security was held last Monday, where issues such as the collaboration of mutual insurance companies with Social Security, the reduction coefficients for arduous and dangerous activities to be established in order to bring forward retirement, the recovery of the 1.5 multiplier coefficient for fixed-term workers and the compatibility between work and pension, among others, are being resolved.

The Government believes it is “close” to reaching an agreement with social partners on pensions and Social Security, although the unions have regretted the lack of “new developments” in the negotiations and of written proposals from the Department headed by Elma Saiz.

“Thanks to intensive negotiation work in recent days, we are very close to reaching an agreement on these issues,” the Ministry said on Monday.

As regards the general approach to partial retirement, the Government has proposed extending the possibility of early retirement from 2 to 3 years. In addition, as in the case of the manufacturing industry, the Government has also proposed improving the working conditions of the relief worker and a new, more balanced and flexible approach for the company regarding the working hours of the relief worker and the pensioner.

UGT WARNS: THE “COUNTERPART” IS TO ACCUMULATE 38.5 YEARS OF CONTRIBUTIONS

However, UGT has denounced that the “compensation” that workers must assume for this advance of 3 years is that they must accumulate a contribution of 38 and a half years. “Without this contribution history, people would not be able to benefit from this type of retirement,” the union warned.

In the case of partial retirement in the manufacturing industry, according to UGT, the number of years of contributions to qualify for it is increased from 33 to 35 years, also with those three years in advance.

The Ministry has stated that a proposal has been made regarding the regulation of partial retirement, which consists of extending the special regulation for workers in the manufacturing industry with certain elements of convergence towards the proposal for ordinary partial retirement, that is, making adjustments to improve the working conditions of the relief worker and designing a more balanced and flexible regulation for the company in terms of the organisation of the workday of the relief worker and the pensioner.

UNIONS REGRET THE LACK OF WRITTEN PROPOSALS

But the Secretary of Public Policies and Social Protection of CCOO, Carlos Bravo, believes that there are no major new developments in the negotiations “because the Government has not brought any new proposal to the table.”

“He has compiled a list of the issues that we have been discussing verbally in recent weeks and has received a response from all social partners demanding the texts in writing in order to be able to address them,” Bravo said in statements sent by the union after the meeting last Monday.

Along the same lines, the Secretary for Institutional Policy and Territorial Policies of UGT, Cristina Estévez, regretted the lack of documents and written proposals. “They are only verbal proposals that have a certain whiff of improvisation and that do not help at all in this negotiation,” she criticised.

However, CCOO says that the Ministry is still sticking to the idea of ​​reaching an agreement before the end of July, although the unions see it as “difficult” if the Department headed by Elma Saiz does not finalise the texts quickly.

The Government and social partners have agreed to meet on Monday morning at 11:30 a.m., awaiting, according to the unions, written proposals from the Ministry.