The general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has complained to the Government of Spain that if it does not reach an agreement with the CEOE regarding working hours, start the legislative reform “bareback” for its reduction to 37.5 hours “without any type of compensation.”
Álvarez believes there is no time for more contemplations with the employers: “If they want compensation, if they want an agreement, let them sit down and negotiate. And if not, the businessmen of this country have to know that their business organization will go down the road in the middle. We could do the same, but we are at the table making proposals and trying to understand in which sectors there are more problems and how we can mitigate them“, he defended.
The leader of the UGT has in mind the long processing period that the reform requires: “The CEOE cannot be paralyzing this reform, it is reasonable for the Government to seek an agreement with the organizations that want to sign it and for the process to begin of processing because the legal change takes a long time”, he warned about a process that he recalled could last for eight months.
“Soon two years of the legislature will have passed, and even if it lasts four years, we may find that this reform is not approved, but I want ask the CEOE not to play politics, which may be Russian roulettebecause he thinks he is going to win, but he is going to lose no matter what, because finally the reduction of working hours in Spain is going to happen. Whether the CEOE likes it or not,” he stated.
In that sense, he has appealed to the popular will as a driving force to convince the different parliamentary parties and groups: “I don’t think they are going to want to go to the 2027 elections with this open issue, because there are still some citizens who When it comes time to vote, they weigh what each party has done in relation to the reduction of working time, a priority issue for us.
UGT defends that This reduction in working hours will benefit the most precarious sectorsin many cases dominated by women, with is the home care sector, with whose representatives in the Zaragoza City Council, precisely, Álvarez and Arceiz meet this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. to learn about the problems they face with the new contracts launched by the council.
“It is a sector that needs an absolutely immediate update because the Administration has met a citizen demand for home care, care in general for the elderly, also in residences, with an absolutely unpresentable precariousness,” Álvarez criticized.
“They think that care for the elderly is going to come at the expense of the workers in the sector. And that is what it seems, because in the end this comes out of the General State Budgets, either through contracts with companies to provide the service or whether it is the direct route of the Administration”, he stated.
Regarding this double route with different benefits for workers, the UGT leader has warned that he cannot continue: “When it is the direct route of the Administration, the conditions are better, but When there are subcontractors, the conditions are absolutely unacceptable.but the administrations have to know that this is over, that we are going to go to a process of demands, the public contracting of services cannot be done at the expense of the workers, the reduction of the public deficit cannot be done at the expense of the workers. cost of regulating labor relations as has been the case in this sector for years.
A “precariousness” with respect to the specific issue of the working day in which it has included commerce and hospitality employees: “In the hospitality sector it is a scandal, a shame and the State has to put in place mechanisms of control of the working day. This level of undignified exploitation that exists in this sector cannot be allowed,” he criticized.
In this regard, Álvarez has recalled, without expressly citing it, the statement made by the president of the Spanish Hospitality Business Confederation, José Luis Yzuel from Aragon, in which he considered that working more than ten hours is not bad because in high temporality there is to take advantage of.
“Let him work them,” snapped the leader of the UGT, who has defended that “the employed workers in the hospitality sector are going to keep schedules, they are going to work the days they have to work and they are not unbearable days that we are experiencing”.
Open meeting to address burning issues
Álvarez and Arceiz participated this Monday in a meeting with UGT delegates held at the Arsenio Jimeno Training Center in Zaragoza. A meeting that has served to review the most burning issues of current national and regional labor affairs.
“We are going to discuss all the dialogue tables that are open and are not yet closed so that the delegates of Aragon have first-hand information, and what better than if it is from our general secretary, such as home help and regional agreement for the residential sector, youth and leisure centres, but also for the economy, for the EREs that are coming out in Aragon, for the transport strike”, the general secretary of UGT Aragón has listed on an assembly which he has assured will be “open” so that “the delegates can ask what they consider.”
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