The Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) denies that the reduction of the weekly working day to 37.5 hours will increase productivity, as defended by the Ministry of Labor, and points out that, so that Spain had a productivity similar to the European average, Their effective working hours should be around 41.2 hours per week.
In the documents that CEOE has sent to Labor with its considerations on the draft of the preliminary bill for reducing working hours, to which Europa Press has had access, The employers’ association emphasizes that the Ministry’s premise that reducing working hours increases productivity “is not supported empirically.”
“Studies indicate that it is the increase in productivity that allows the reduction of working hours and the increase in salaries. In sectors where productivity is directly related to working timean imposed reduction will generate organizational imbalances and a greater increase in labor costs, resulting in a decrease in productivity,” warns the employer.
CEOE alleges that, since 2019, productivity per employee has decreased significantly in Spain compared to its growth in the EU as a whole, to which we must add that Spain presents low productivity levels compared to its European partners.
According to the CEOEin comparative terms, those European countries that have an effective working day in a similar range to the Spanish one they show notably higher productivity.
“To have a level of productivity in line with the average of the countries analyzed, the effective working day in Spain should be around 41.2 hours per week. Therefore, carrying out reductions in these working hours without very significant increases in productivity would distance us even further from European references,” he warns.
In the documents sent by the employers to Labor, the CEOE also states that the draft contains statementss “free and without rigor” and that confuses the maximum working day with the agreed working day.
Thus, the employers’ association points out that the legislator can limit the maximum duration of the legal working day, as an “insurmountable limit” to be taken into account in collective bargaining or in individual contracts, “but never as an element of conventionally fixing the working day.” agreed work contract”.
In this sense, it warns that the closer the maximum legal working day is to the actually agreed working day, “reducing” the margin available for negotiation, that is, the margin left by productivity levels for companies to be viable, “its constitutional fit will be more debatable.”
For all these reasons, it considers that the Labor proposal “constitutes an unprecedented interference in collective autonomy and does not hide the final purpose of changing the constitutional model of setting working conditions by social agents through collective bargaining for another.” intervened’ that contravenes, even, the guidelines of the Council of Europe”.
“To the extent that the government proposal tries to influence, not only in the maximum legal working day, but in the working day already agreed upon in the current collective agreements, the rule affects the essential core of collective bargaining,” he criticizes.
Collective bargaining has already reduced the maximum working day
Faced with the practice of “demonize the company as a way to attract the vote”the employers’ association emphasizes in its considerations of the draft bill that business organizations defend the reduction of working hours, but “adjusted to the needs of each sector through collective bargaining.”
Thus, the employers, citing data from the Collective Agreements statistics of the Ministry of Labor, emphasizes that collective bargaining has made it possible to reduce the maximum working day, reaching agreements that range between 37.5 and 39.5 hours per week, depending on the productive and organizational needs of companies and workers.
Specifically, it alleges, 24.78% of the agreements with economic effects in 2024 are in the working day range of 37.5 to 38.5 hours per week, which affects 27.98% of the workers covered by them, and 53.95% of workers have an agreed annual working day of between 38.5 and 39.5 hours per week.
“This flexibility has been crucial to maintain business competitivenesswhile facilitating the conciliation between the work and personal life of workers,” defends CEOE, which warns that the announcement of the reduction in working hours to 37.5 hours “has stopped collective bargaining in its tracks.”
“Unfortunately, the above is just the beginning. Labor conflict will be inevitable. The impact of the law will generate added tensions in collective bargaining and those who made concessions in their agreement in exchange for reductions in working hours will demand to maintain the distance achieved,” warns CEOE, which requests that the reduction in working hours be “carefully evaluated” to assess its economic and employment impact and taking into account the reality of the different sectors.
In this sense, he complains that the draft lacks economic memory and offers “a distorted vision of the impact of this reform on companies.” CEOE also believes It is a “gratuitous” statement to say in the draft that the current configuration of the maximum working day makes it difficult to comply with the right to rest.
It also alleges that the difference between agreed and effective hours is more than 5 hours “due to the sharp increase in absenteeism in all territories and sectors” due to the increase in temporary disabilities due to common illness.
CEOE affirms that in other countries there are pilot projects for the reduction of working hours, of voluntary adhesion or by agreement, accompanied by public aid for their implementation, but “not from legislative imposition as proposed by the Ministry, with purely cosmetic accompanying measures that have also been withdrawn as punishment”.
The employers denounce that Labor ignores that some EU countries, such as Greece, have increased the length of the ordinary working day. In any case, CEOE specifies, 25 EU countries still have maximum legal work days of 40 hours.
“Fictional” social dialogue
He also considers that the social dialogue meetings for the reduction in working hours have been “fictitious, guided by an exclusively media interest of the Ministry and without the intention of transacting outside the limits set by the PSOE-Sumar Government agreement.”
In this sense, he denounces that political action “has been promoting the denaturalization of social dialogue,” turning it “into a mere tool of political communication at the service of the announcements of the Ministry in power, the selective and a la carte use of social dialogue and consultation procedures being already common.”
Thus, CEOE affirms that in up to almost 30 regulations with an impact on labor relations ““the constitutional mandate of mandatory consultation has been omitted” to the social partners. For the employers’ association, this draft is “the latest example of colonization of collective autonomy and also of the erosion of democratic dynamics,” says the employers’ association led by Antonio Garamendi.
The employers cannot understand why the reduction in working hours directly results “in the equal participation of women” and cHow it affects progress in the fight against climate change“, as the preliminary project states. “It is understood that it is said that it has no budgetary effects, given the Government’s resistance to assuming the costs derived from the reduction of working hours in public contracts,” he adds.
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