The bosses rejects the proposal put on the table by the Ministry of Labor to reduce the work day to a legal maximum of 37.5 hours per week. CEOE held an extraordinary Executive Committee this Tuesday to establish its position in response to which the Government has warned that it will be its “last offer” to try to reach a tripartite agreement with employers and unions. In its last meeting, last Tuesday the Executive asked the social agents to give it a definitive “yes or no” on the proposal before November 11 and the businessmen have already made a decision. CEOE and Cepyme disagree, considering that the generalized reduction in working time “makes little sense” and that its modification by law is an “interference” in collective bargaining between employers and unions.
“The extraordinary Executive Committee of CEOE has unanimously rejected the proposal of the Ministry of Labor to legally reduce the working day,” the business organization announced in a joint statement issued together with Cepyme, which also subscribes to the refusal. “CEOE and Cepyme, from responsibility, they cannot support this proposal”, they emphasize.
The employers argue that the reduction of working time by law that the Government intends to undertake represents an “interference in the autonomy of collective bargaining”. They believe that this issue is a “subject matter” of collective agreements and therefore it is not necessary to legislate in this regard, but rather it must be addressed bilaterally by social agents and employers. “The approval of this norm only weakens the collective bargaining framework that has been fundamental to maintaining social peace during the last 40 years,” say CEOE and Cepyme, who add that there are already agreements with agreed days of 37.5 hours. weekly.
In this sense, employers defend that the reduction in working time be debated within companies and different sectors, to take into account their own characteristics. “Adopting measures like this on a general basis makes little sense if we take into account the enormous difficulties that exist between the different economic sectors and between autonomous communities,” they argue. CEOE and Cepyme assure that the reduction of the working day by law will lead to many companies, especially SMEs and self-employed“to a forced reorganization that will put their capacity for internal organization and survival to the limit.
The latest proposal put forward by the Ministry of Labor to reduce the working day to 37.5 hours precisely contains measures aimed at small and medium-sized companies. The latest news included last week by the department of Yolanda Diaz includes direct aid of up to 6,000 euros to companies with less than five workers of the commerce, hospitality, hairdressing, cleaning and agriculture sectors that are affected by the reduction in working hours. According to Labor, the objective is to “stimulate” productivity in these lagging sectors with “more effective” operating formulas such as electronic commerce or the digitalization of time registration systems.
“In companies with such small staff, the gain in productivity is the best element to face the reduction of working hours, because job creation is perhaps more difficult,” defended the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey. However, the employers do not see this increase in productivity as possible. “Productivity will hardly increase from reducing working hours in a productive fabric made up of around 98% by SMEs and the self-employed, and where the sectors with the greatest contribution to GDP are linked, among others, to services or tourism,” CEOE and Cepyme point out in their joint statement.
In addition to the direct aid to microSMEs offered at the last meeting – which the Government estimates could benefit 470,000 companies with a total investment of between 350 and 375 million euros -, the Job offer also includes a support and advice plan for small and medium-sized companies with less than 10 workers affected by the reduction in working hours, as well as bonuses of between 20% and 100% for the conversion of partial contracts into full-time jobs and for indefinite contracts. With these measures, the Government has tried to bring closer positions with the employers, but the businessmen have reaffirmed their refusal this Tuesday.
An agreement with the unions
The Secretary of State for Labor stressed this Tuesday that the rejection of employers will not stop the Government’s intention to reduce the working day to 37.5 hours, as PSOE and Sumar agreed in the government agreement. Díaz’s department is willing to carry out the cut in working time only with the unionswho welcome the Government’s approach, which also plans to regulate the right to disconnection and modify the time register.
“We will seek an agreement with the union organizations to transfer to Congress as soon as possible of the Deputies this capital reform,” said Pérez Rey in a press conference, asked, hours before the employers’ position was known, what the ministry would do if the businessmen maintained their refusal. “We will try to get the unions present in the table supports us,” he insisted, pointing out that without the employers’ association some of the measures proposed to bring closer positions with the employers may falter in the negotiation with UGT and CCOO. “Naturally, to reach an agreement with the union organizations, we will have to establish some measures in the text that accommodate what the union organizations are asking for,” he explains.
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