Labor expects an “imminent agreement” with the unions to reduce the working day: “We are going to legislate as quickly as possible”

After the employers’ ‘no’, the Ministry of Labor is preparing for an “imminent agreement” with the majority unions to reduce the working day to 37 and a half hours a week. This was announced by Yolanda Díaz’s ‘number two’, the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, who explained that some “technical adjustments” and “some variables” in the text still need to be addressed with CCOO and UGT, but with the intention of closing the draft bill “as soon as possible.” In fact, the Ministry will begin the process to legislate within the Government this Friday.

“I announce that the Government is now formally beginning the legislative process. Tomorrow will begin with the public consultation of the draft law so that, as soon as possible, the Cortes Generales can give their final approval” to the legislation, explained Pérez Rey.

The Secretary of State for Labor has insisted that, “complying with all legal guarantees”, the PSOE and Sumar Executive “will increase the urgency” to move forward with the bill with this legislative commitment, “possibly the most important”, he assessed: the reduction of the maximum working day from 40 hours to 37 and a half in 2025.

“We plan to carry out an urgent procedure within the Government,” announced Joaquín Pérez Rey. “We are going to go as quickly as possible,” he insisted, although he recalled that the procedures to legislate take time. For example, there are several procedures before reaching the Council of Ministers, such as public consultation and hearing and the request for some mandatory reports, such as to the Economic and Social Council (CES).

Then, the Government will take the rule to the Congress of Deputies, where the Executive will have to achieve a majority of support for the regulation before its final approval, which the unions expect until late next year. “Between spring and summer,” they calculate to elDiario.es.

The CCOO and UGT unions have criticized that the employers have delayed the negotiation, delaying the reduction of the working day. “You are not loyal if in the end you give an excuse that has been there since January,” said Fernando Luján, deputy general secretary of Union Policy at UGT.

“Today we put an end” to the tripartite negotiation, lamented Carlos Gutiérrez, confederal secretary of Union Studies and Training of CCOO, who recalled that the unions have always tried to reach an agreement for an easier implementation of the measure in the many companies and productive sectors in the country.

The bilateral negotiation phase with the Government is expected to be “rapid”, the unions have acknowledged, with a text already very advanced, which includes the reduction of the maximum working day, but also reforms the recording of working hours to make it more effective and toughens sanctions on companies for non-compliance.

Tension returns with the bosses

This Thursday, the Secretary of State for Labor regretted that businessmen had withdrawn from this “vintage” agreement, in the words of Vice President Yolanda Díaz. After almost eleven months of negotiations, the CEOE employers’ association flatly rejected the possibility of reducing the maximum working day by law, to demand that this issue be addressed in collective bargaining between companies and unions. “At this point it can only be described as a joke,” criticized Joaquín Pérez Rey.

Yolanda Díaz’s ‘number two’ has highlighted the Government’s willingness to negotiate, with multiple proposals and the offer of aid to small businesses, which are now expected to disappear from the equation. The unions are not demanding them and Labor had already warned employers that not agreeing would have a cost.

The Secretary of State has considered that on this occasion “other interests have been at play in the employers’ association”, not those of the companies. “Surely ideological, partisan, related to not appearing that the employers support a Government labor policy,” he maintained. For their part, CEOE employers have defended their right to say ‘no’ to the Executive’s proposals.

This Thursday’s meeting was scheduled for last week, but the Ministry of Labor canceled the negotiating table due to the DANA catastrophe. The environmental emergency meant putting aside the tension between Labor and businessmen, although it only lasted a few days.

At first, the department led by Yolanda Díaz focused its messages on unity of action and gratitude to the social agents (unions and businessmen) in the management of the emergency in the Valencian Community, which has involved the deployment of two packages of Government measures and, among them, a new “labor shield”.

However, public clashes with the CEOE employers’ association, its leader Antonio Garamendi, and the business world soon resurfaced. Mainly, around two issues. The first: because the employers rejected one of the ‘labor shield’ measures, the non-recoverable paid leave approved by the Government, which has allowed workers affected by the catastrophe not to go to work and collect their salaries. These are four causes of justified absences, from the search for missing relatives to caring for family members.

And the second: the messages in the last week from the second vice president against the companies that were making employees work during weather alerts and her “forceful” warnings from the Labor Inspection, which is investigating a hundred complaints. Negative messages that have not gone down well in the business world, from which they insist that the vast majority of companies are focused on facing the devastation of their businesses and where they also highlight aid and collaboration initiatives for the recovery of the area affected by DANA. .