The Ministry of Labor has closed an agreement with the majority unions (CCOO and UGT) to reduce the maximum working day to 37 and a half hours per week in 2025. This Friday morning, Vice President Yolanda Díaz will sign the pact together with the union leaders of CCOO, Unai Sordo, and of UGT, Pepe Álvarez. They will do so in the midst of a clash between the Ministries of Labor and Economy regarding this legislation, an electoral measure by Sumar that was agreed upon with the PSOE in the agreement to form the coalition Government.
The agreement between Labor and the unions will be bilateral, without the employers, which withdrew from the negotiation at the beginning of November, after eleven months of social dialogue negotiations. The employers unanimously rejected reducing by law the maximum working day and the aid package offered by the Ministry of Yolanda Díaz, since the CEOE insisted that this matter must remain under the collective bargaining of each company and sector.
The departure of the businessmen left the way open for an agreement between Labor and the majority unions, which the Ministry announced as “immediate” and which has finally finished being polished until this Friday, when Labor has called for the signature.
After four decades with a maximum of 40 hours of work per week, since the last reduction approved by the PSOE Government of Félipe González in the 80s, the pact states that the maximum duration of the ordinary work day “will be 37 and a half hours weekly average of effective work on an annual basis,” contemplates the legal draft to which elDiario.es has had access.
The date of application of the measure is 2025, even for collective agreements already signed with a higher maximum working day, for which there is until December 31 to adapt to the standard. The deployment of the reduction is one of the main sources of friction between Economy and Labor, since the Ministry of Carlos Corps has opened up to delaying the measure to “help companies” adapt, “in a sustainable and balanced way”, He said this Wednesday.
For people with part-time contracts (the vast majority women) who work in companies that have full-time days of more than 37 and a half hours, the agreement states that they have the right to maintain their schedules and have their salary increase, since they will be working more percentage of the total. This is another of the elements with differences between Economy and Work, according to Yolanda Díaz’s department.
More topics: time registration, digital disconnection and fines
The legal text agreed between Labor and the majority unions also regulates changes in the registration of the working day, in the right to digital disconnection and toughens fines for abuses in schedules, with the aim of combating abuses in schedules, the most frequent.
The mandatory recording of working hours will necessarily have to be digital (now it can be done on paper) and guarantee “the objectivity, reliability and accessibility of the working day record.” It must be accessible in real time by the Labor Inspection, among other relevant developments.
The right to digital disconnection is already recognized in Spain, but something more is specified, such as “the absence of any request to perform a work benefit and the absence of communication from the company or person to whom it is delegated, as well as from third parties in relation to commercial with the company, with the worker through any device, tool or digital means, as well as the right not to be reachable outside of work hours,” the draft states.
In addition, the sanctions for failing to comply with the time registration are toughened, with fines for each worker instead of the current ones, which are applied only once regardless of the number of workers.
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