Agreement between the Ministry of Labor and the majority unions to reduce the maximum working day in Spain without cutting wages. After four decades with the limit of 40 hours of work per week, the pact contemplates reducing it to 37 and a half hours per week in 2025. In addition, the legal project includes several very relevant measures on working time, such as changes in the time record. daily and greater sanctions for non-compliance, among others.
It is a social pact, which now faces its path to becoming law. A complex path in which the unions are aware that it is possible that some issues may be modified in the parliamentary process, as the leaders of CCOO, Unai Sordo, and UGT, Pepe Álvarez, recognized this Friday. However, both have stressed that the unions will mobilize if the law is blocked in Parliament or issues that they consider essential are eliminated.
Below, we collect some of the most notable keys of the agreement.
How much is the working day reduced?
The agreement reduces the maximum legal working day, which is now 40 hours per week. It is the legal maximum since the first Government of Felipe González, who reduced the working day as promised in his electoral program, also with great resistance from the employers.
Thus, the maximum duration of the ordinary work day will be 37 and a half hours per week “of effective work on average annually,” the text states.
The days are agreed in annual terms, with different types of distribution in the week and day to day. But, as an example, if we think of a normal work day of eight hours a day, for five days a week (which adds up to 40 hours a week), this change could be visible in a loss of half an hour a day: working hours 7 and a half hours.
“12 million” people reached
The Ministry of Labor’s calculations indicate that the measure would reach some “12 million people” who are workers, who would currently have working days of more than 37 and a half hours a week.
Similar figures have been estimated by the unions, which have highlighted that the reduction in working hours will above all benefit women and generally more precarious jobs, with less power to mobilize and that in their collective agreements (if they have them) they have not been reducing their working hours. labor.
Less hours, same salary
One of the keys to the measure is that the maximum working day is reduced, but without a cut in salary. That is, the hour worked increases its price. This is reflected in the legal draft agreed with the unions with several clarifications. For example, there is a clause to prevent the increase in hourly wages from being eliminated in practice through the absorption of bonuses, the leader of CCOO, Unai Sordo, highlighted this Friday.
Specifically, the agreement states: “The reduction in working hours established in this law may not have the consequence of affecting remuneration or the compensation, absorption or disappearance of any more favorable rights or more beneficial conditions that workers have been enjoying.” .
Salary increases for part-time contracts
The agreement also recognizes the right of people with part-time contracts, the vast majority of whom are women, who are governed by maximum working hours above 37 and a half hours per week “to continue performing the same number of hours of work that they carrying out” and receive the “proportional increase in their salary”, given that they will begin to work more percentage of the full reference time.
In addition, part-time contracts that have work days of 37 and a half hours or more “will automatically become full-time employment contracts upon application of said legal work day.”
Reinforcement of time registration
The pact reforms the mandatory registration of working hours in multiple aspects, perhaps a more important element for some companies, especially those that already have hours shorter than the new agreed maximum.
The registration of the day will necessarily have to be digital, which puts an end to the paper signing that exists in many companies. It is agreed that “the objectivity, reliability and accessibility of the working day record must be guaranteed”, for which measures are agreed such as that the worker who makes the record must be “unequivocally” identified “as well as any possible modifications” of the records. data.
Although the most relevant change may be that the working day record “must be accessible remotely for the Labor and Social Security Inspection and for the representation of workers.” This surveillance access by the Inspection to the records in real time is one of the most notable advances by the Ministry of Labor, as a way to put an end to irregularities in work schedules, one of the most detected business abuses.
Increased sanctions
Not only is time control reinforced, but the fines for non-compliance are also toughened. As occurred with the abuses of temporary contracts in the labor reform, the Ministry of Labor has agreed to “individualize” the sanctions regarding registration of working hours. That is, instead of imposing a fine on a company for not having time control, a penalty would be imposed for each worker in the company.
In addition, the amounts of fines for serious infractions related to working time are increased, which may reach 10,000 euros, instead of the current 7,500 euros. A type of serious and another very serious infraction is also created related to abuses in working hours that imply a risk to health.
Right to digital disconnection
The right to so-called digital disconnection is already recognized in Spain, but the agreement adds some specifications in the face of poor compliance.
“The business duty to guarantee the right to disconnection is specified in the absence of any request to perform a labor service and the absence of communication from the company or person to whom it delegates, as well as from third parties with a commercial relationship with the company, with the worker by any device, tool or digital means, as well as the right not to be reachable outside of their working hours,” states the text, which includes that it is an “inalienable” right.
A future law, with possible changes
The Ministry of Labor has explained that the social agreement reached with the unions will be transferred to the legal text that is approved by the coalition Government in the Council of Ministers, although after the open tensions with the Economy it will be necessary to see if this is confirmed.
Afterwards, the Government’s draft bill will go to the Congress of Deputies, where it faces a complex path in its processing, since it is very difficult for the Executive to achieve the necessary support for its initiatives and where Junts especially focuses its attention, due to its proximity to the business community. .
Therefore, it is likely that the text now agreed between Labor and the majority unions may change throughout its processing in the Cortes, as both union leaders have recognized in their interventions. In any case, CCOO and UGT have warned that they will be attentive to possible attempts to “block” the legislation in Parliament, with the provision of “mobilizations” in such case, if the law is rejected or if issues that consider essential.
When would it be approved? And the entry into force?
The most optimistic scenarios suggest that the legislation could be approved in the spring of 2025. About two months are expected for it to pass through the Council of Ministers, due to necessary prior procedures such as consultation with the Economic and Social Council (CES), when it would pass to the Congress of Deputies. Then, the parliamentary process would proceed, which sometimes takes a long time, with many extensions to the amendment periods and where the Parliament table will play a key role, the unions loom.
The entry into force of the law is expected “the day after its publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE), although with exceptions. Collective agreements with working hours longer than 37 and a half hours “will have a period until December 31, 2025 to make the necessary adaptations to ensure compliance with the provisions of this standard,” the text states.
Changes to the time registration have a margin of six months from the publication in the BOE and the obligation of interoperability and remote accessibility to its data is placed when provided for in the regulation that has yet to be approved on the registration of working hours.
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