The CEOE summons the management bodies in an extraordinary manner to decide on the ultimatum of reducing working hours

This meeting of the highest management bodies will take place next Tuesday, November 5, six days before the ultimatum expires (November 11) launched by the Government to business organizations – also Cepyme – to decide whether or not to accept the proposal of the Ministry of Labor in which in recent weeks the department led by Díaz has included a series of compensations to mitigate the economic impact of the measure among smaller companies. Mainly, with bonuses for hiring in companies with less than ten workers, and with direct aid of up to 6,000 euros for those with less than five workers.

Unofficially, the organization led by Antonio Garamendi reported after the last meeting of the negotiating table that was held last Tuesday that the position of the CEOE The last few hours are limited to defending the validity of the 4,500 collective agreements that are signed via collective bargaining with the UGT and CC.OO unions. Frameworks for establishing working conditions in which the distribution and hours of working time are established. As indicated by the business sources consulted, these currently establish an average of 38.3 hours per week.

Predictable refusal to the ultimatum

However, the business sources consulted by ABC see difficult that the last offer transferred from the Ministry of Labor serves to reverse the refusal of employers’ organizations. Both CEOE and Cepyme consider that the starting point of the reform of the Workers’ Statute to incorporate the 37.5 hours represents an interference in the negotiating work of employers and unions that is carried out by companies, sectors, provinces and also at the autonomous level. in the agreements.

In this scenario of a “no” to the ultimatum on the part of CEOE and Cepyme, the department led by Yolanda Díaz already warned that it would begin express negotiation of the measure only with UGT and CC.OO., and threatened that in this compensatory measures could decline that have been planned for companies with less than ten and five workers. An extreme that was confirmed by the union organizations, ensuring that if the CEOE does not sign the agreement to reduce working hours, the conditions of the text that will finally go to the parliamentary process would change since this aid has been established precisely to soften the business position.

However, the sources consulted explain that these are measures with almost no economic scope: “The box is big but it has no content.” They assure that the ‘SME 375 Plan’ in which compensation has been incorporated in the form of bonuses and direct aid really has no economic scope. “Are ridiculous financial compensation for high structural costs«, they indicate. It is worth remembering that, according to the General Council of Colleges of Administrative Managers of Spain, the direct cost of reducing working hours would amount to up to 15,000 million euros annually.

While it should also be noted that the aid for small businesses proposed by the Government, meager, is also highly conditioned. For example, hiring bonuses are limited only to the first year of the employment relationship, while if companies accept them they must keep the worker for a minimum of three years. Furthermore, it remains to be seen the level of the bonuses, which has not yet been set by the Government.

This is precisely another of the aspects that pushes the CEOE to a expected negative next Tuesday since the Ministry of Labor has not yet transferred a draft regulatory text with the compendium of measures, to which must be added, in addition to the aid plan for SMEs, the mandatory digital time record to which the Labor Inspection will have access and strengthening the right to disconnect. Nor, therefore, has a report on the economic impact of the measures been provided, which has already been requested in several meetings by business organizations.