After the meeting of the labor reform this Tuesday, the Executive will propose a new treatment to the eventuals, while unions and employers admit progress in the negotiation
Today the new labor reform is one step closer to reaching its objective of having a new text of the Workers’ Statute approved before the end of the month, as the Government has promised before the European Commission. This is admitted by the different parties that participate in the social dialogue – the Executive itself, CC OO and UGT, and CEOE – after the meeting held this Tuesday by videoconference, in which one of the most complicated and mollar issues to reach to an agreement: that of temporality.
The Executive has put on the table a new proposal to modify article 15 of the Workers’ Statute, which defines the use of temporary contracts, and which causes so much headache in this negotiation. It has also done so after the employer presented its own labor reform last week with aspirations that could break the agreement so that all the signatures were finally stamped on the text. In the latest document of the Executive, according to sources of the negotiation, the initial idea of applying a maximum limit of temporary per company is softened: first, 15% of the workforce was advocated and then that requirement was lowered based on the size of each business or sector.
The idea of the Ministry of Labor is to define the causes of eventual hiring based on the circumstances of the production of a company, which may be forced to make specific incorporations. For example, in campaigns like Christmas. That is, very defined and predictable periods in time, with their corresponding justification and limitations on the number of days of eventuals per year. And always without temporary quotas depending on the template. That would be one of the great news with respect to the initial intention.
The situation of temporary contracts has also been addressed in some coverages such as vacations, as well as the time of circumstantial short-term contracts or the nullity of the contract in case of legal fraud in temporary hiring, indicate union sources.
In relation to the discontinuous permanent contract, it is still necessary to bring positions around the objective and formal criteria of the call, the reasons why the possible lack of incorporation is justified before a call, so that this is not considered a resignation of the worker , the guaranteed period of effective work and the computation of seniority. Key aspects for CC OO, according to union sources.
Despite the “difficulty” admitted by all parties to reach an agreement, they also point out that “there is consensus in the philosophy and in the contracting scheme that is outlined in the proposals” that have been built in recent weeks. “Some positions are getting closer, which come to suppose progress,” indicate these same sources. The three parties will meet again this Friday to try to reach an agreement on which the Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, is increasingly hopeful.
And this despite the tug of war between the government and the employers, which does not erase the optimism of the Executive to fulfill its commitment to close the pact before the end of the year. This was stated this Monday by Díaz, reiterating that the text will be ready and published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) before the end of 2021.
Although the message is the same as in recent days, Díaz has been able to transmit it this time in Brussels, just before a meeting of the 27 ministers. As detailed, the text on the reform is “on the runway” for approval and publication. And he hopes to have the support of businessmen. The second vice president explained that the Government is working “with greater determination” to close a text that involves the employers and achieve a reform of which, as she has commented, the details have already been finalized in coordination with Brussels.
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