CEOE maintains its opposition to the legal reduction of the working day and unions say that 37.5 hours will be reached in 2026
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The Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey, said on Tuesday, after concluding the meeting on social dialogue on the reduction of working hours, that he had perceived “a change of tone” in business organisations, with a “more constructive” attitude, and he remains confident of reaching a three-way agreement involving CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme.
After a meeting lasting almost four hours, Pérez Rey explained that the Government has outlined “with greater precision” the elements that form part of this negotiation at today’s meeting: reducing the working week to 37.5 hours, regulating the right to digital disconnection, electronic time recording and a support plan for SMEs.
The plan, which includes bonuses for permanent employment generated by small and medium-sized companies as a result of the reduction in working hours, has been specified “in a more precise manner” by the Ministry, but Pérez Rey did not want to go into detail “out of respect” for the negotiations.
“The employers’ organisations, which are the most reluctant to accept the reduction in working hours, have agreed to consider the proposal that we have put to them. I am not going to be very precise about it out of respect for the confidentiality of the negotiations,” Pérez Rey insisted.
However, despite the Ministry of Labour’s greater optimism, CEOE sources have indicated to Europa Press that at the meeting on Tuesday they have again opposed the legal reduction of the working day.
These same sources also confirmed that at the negotiating table no “propositions of those put forward at the last meeting” were put into writing.
The Secretary of State stressed that the reduction of working hours is “essential to improve the lives of workers” and is also a debate that “transcends all ideologies.” “That is why I welcome the PP to this debate,” said the Secretary of State for Employment.
The next meeting of the working day reduction committee will take place on 11 October, according to representatives of the trade union organisations, who have stressed that although no deadline has been set for ending the negotiations, they cannot last “indefinitely”.
“There must be considerable progress at the next meeting so that we can believe that there are possibilities of moving forward,” said Mari Cruz Vicente, Secretary of Trade Union Action and Employment of CCOO.
UNIONS SAY THE 37.5-HOUR WEEK WILL BE IN PLACE AS SOON AS 2026
Asked about the deadlines, Vicente indicated that the parliamentary processing of the project will mean that the reduction of the working week to 37.5 hours will be applied as early as 2026, while the previous stage, the reduction from the current 40 hours to 38.5 hours, will come in 2025, which would mean delaying the Government’s plans by one year.
“No matter how quickly we move forward with the negotiation process, there is still a parliamentary procedure that, well, if we manage to get their lordships to side with the citizens and vote in favour of the reduction, it will be a short procedure, but we can also take a different position and the procedure can be a little longer,” he acknowledged.
However, both Vicente and the Deputy Secretary General for Trade Union Policy of UGT, Fernando Luján, have indicated that they will fight to reach an agreement before the end of the year because they will not allow the reduction of working hours to remain “on a dead end” because “it has been sold to us as the star of the legislature.”
For this reason, Luján has asked the Government to take a position on the measure, since negotiations have been going on for more than 9 months, although a tripartite agreement is desirable.
Along these lines, they have stressed that time recording and digital disconnection are other important issues within the measure, because more than 6 million hours of overtime per week are still being generated, of which 2.6 million are not paid or enjoyed, which represents a “theft” by companies of 3 billion euros in unpaid hours.
Both unionists have therefore once again called for the CEOE’s commitment to reach an agreement that is good for the labour market and workers.
CITIZENS ARE ASKED TO JOIN THE MOBILIZATIONS ON THE 26TH
In this regard, Vicente and Luján have asked citizens to join en masse the demonstrations that both unions have called for next 26th at the headquarters of the employers’ associations of all the provincial capitals of Spain at 11.30.
Trade unionists have stressed that the protests will continue to intensify as time goes by and an agreement is not reached at the negotiating table.
They have also reiterated that the protests are aimed at clarifying the position of political parties represented in Congress regarding the working day.
“We want political groups to clearly join in on something that citizens have been demanding,” Luján concluded.
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