The employers have raised their tone and the ministry has responded. The Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, pointed out on Monday that “practically six months after the social dialogue table for short-time working began its work, there is not a single written proposal” from businessmen. “It is not a panorama to be proud of,” he said on Monday at the end of the meeting with social actors negotiating this issue, recalling that “the only thing the government cannot tolerate is a delay strategy. .”
The president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, declared last week that these negotiations are not a “social dialogue” but a “monologue”. “If they are very clear about the law they want to make, let them make it, then we will not agree with it,” said the leader of the businessmen, who realized that he would ask this that the measure will be reversed if the government changes. Some statements that the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, assessed as 'very serious'. “It is not Spanish employers who create or overthrow governments. They are the Spaniards at the ballot box,” he said an interview on elDiario.es.
The ministry promised last Monday to present a text to social dialogue agents about its plan to reduce the maximum working day to 38.5 hours per week in 2024 and to 37.5 hours in 2025. “We sent a text message ”, said Pérez Rey. and we are left with an employer who has not made an alternative proposal.” The Minister of Foreign Affairs has expressed openness to “assessing these proposals” and “including them” in the debate, but has emphasized that he “must know” them to do so. For this reason, he has urged employers to “send the elements on which the agreement depends” before next week's meeting.
“If we go to Monday without any alternative proposal, we will have to make a decision,” Pérez Rey warned, noting that a negotiation cannot consist of “determining from the outside what will happen, not making real proposals or conditioning everything. to a change of government.” “The coalition government has a commitment to its citizens,” he repeated several times during his speech.
Sanctions of 10,000 euros per person
The text presented by the ministry to the social dialogue agents, to which Europa Press had access, provided for the strengthening of sanctions related to time control, with fines of up to 10,000 euros for serious violations per employee who does not comply with the rules, instead of doing it globally. At the minimum level, the fines go from 1,000 to 2,000 euros and in the middle from 2,001 to 5,000 euros. In addition, Labor's intention, as already put forward by the ministry, is to create a new digital time registration system that can be accessed remotely by the Labor Inspectorate.
The document also clarifies the situation in which part-time workers would be left behind. The contracts of those who already have a weekly shift of 37.5 hours will automatically become full-time; there will be a proportional salary increase; and those who benefit from reduced working hours can request that the reduction percentage be maintained, although it will be the employer who decides “in a reasoned manner”.
The Labor proposal has appealed to the unions, who showed great harmony with the government in these negotiations this Monday. “There is an aspect from the point of view of technical improvement, of writing, but it also includes our objectives,” said the deputy secretary general of trade union policy of the UGT, Fernando Luján, who has asked employers to say: “Ten first: if it is willing to negotiate 'the reduction of the working day' and then 'what are the requirements they need to be part of the agreement'. “We want to know whether its terms are acceptable to the trade union organizations and whether it falls within the government agreement,” he said.
“It is very difficult to enter into a negotiation process if we do not know what the business organizations want and what is being asked,” agreed the confederal secretary of industrial action of the Workers' Committees, Mari Cruz Vicente. For this union, the document presented by the government is “positive”, so they have committed to supporting it and making efforts to “ask for the support” of the parliamentary groups.