Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the UGT union have staged this Monday the cordiality within the discrepancy that they want to convert into the guide of relations between the main opposition party and one of the two large Spanish unions. The president of the PP has broken a tradition of the leaders of his party and has participated in the congress that the union is holding in Barcelona, an occasion that both Feijóo and the UGT have taken advantage of to make mutual requests.
After detailing some of the principles with a greater social emphasis that are part of his electoral program, the PP leader has called on the union delegates present to support his conciliation law, now blocked in Congress.
“I believe that workers need to extend paternity and maternity leave to 20 weeks, you need nursery schools throughout Spain and greater labor flexibility, both a bank of hours and a flexible working day,” Feijóo has defended, as the main attractions of his proposal, although without mentioning some of the aspects most criticized by social agents.
The general secretary of the UGT of Catalonia, Camil Ros, who also serves as president of the confederal congress, has taken advantage of the carpet laid by Feijóo to make a return claim. “It would be nice, in the next half year, to have a vote in favor or even an abstention in favor of reducing the working day, which would not hurt us,” he suggested, to applause.
Mutual requests could represent a contradiction, since while the PP proposal proposes a reduction of the working week to four days, this will not mean a reduction in weekly hours worked, which would remain at 40. Therefore, it is a vision that clashes with the of UGT, which is currently negotiating to get the Government to approve the 37.5 hours per week.
Although Feijóo has assured that he did not feel like playing “away from home”, the president of the PP has used humor to win over a difficult audience. “Since the majority of you did not vote for me, I could not be president of the Government, so I have met Pepe Álvarez but I have not yet been able to agree on anything with him,” Feijóo joked.
This joke, however, has served for the head of the opposition to show his closeness to Álvarez, the general secretary who will revalidate his mandate in this congress. Both Álvarez and Feijóo have been open to exploring agreements both now and after a possible change of government.
The leader of the PP has avoided direct criticism of the Government of Pedro Sánchez – a vice president of the Executive such as Yolanda Díaz was present in the auditorium – but he has taken the opportunity to highlight the issues with which he differs from the current economic and labor policy.
“Economic triumphalism is an error that we will all pay for,” he said, after which he pointed to the loss of the purchasing power of workers due to inflation since their taxes have not been lowered, as well as the fear of generations. young people to live worse than their parents. Feijóo has also defended the revaluation of pensions and has criticized, without citing it, the Muface crisis, which he has interpreted as “putting public health at risk.”
After claiming a humble family origin and a relationship of many years with the unions – Feijóo has revealed that he became a union delegate, although not for the UGT but in an independent candidacy – the head of the opposition has reaffirmed his promise to maintain the maximum respect for social dialogue if it reaches the Government. “My goal is to defend the general interest,” he said.
Feijóo has participated in the 44th Confederal Congress of UGT, becoming the first leader of the opposition to participate in a congress of the main Spanish union. Initially, the objective of the PP leader was to seek complicity for his proposed conciliation law, a battery of measures that, among other issues, would agree to reduce the working week, although not the actual hours worked. Despite the difference in the proposals, the general secretary of the union, Pepe Álvarez, maintained contacts with Feijóo last month to bring closer positions.
#Feijóo #asks #UGT #support #conciliation #law #union #demands #oppose #reduction #working #hours
