The metal employer maintains that many entities can close if it is prohibited to continue employing freelancers as teachers
A labor inspection carried out by the Regional Federation of Metal Entrepreneurs of Murcia (Fremm) has triggered a storm in this entity and in all those that hire freelancers as teachers to give training courses for employment. The Murcian metal employers’ association, which has an important program of courses for the unemployed and active workers, considers that thousands of entities in Spain may be affected, 825 of them in the Region of Murcia: from universities, to institutes, training centers and academies for competitive examinations, which use self-employed professionals as teachers.
In a statement, Fremm said yesterday that many centers would be “doomed to a chained closure” if the new criterion of the Labor Inspection succeeds, according to which teachers cannot be autonomous as they have been until now, but must be hired as workers by employed. The Murcian institution considers that the Labor Inspectorate “has chosen the Region of Murcia as a scapegoat, since there are thousands of centers that hire freelancers in the rest of Spain,” he added in a statement.
He argues that the “chained effect of this change in criteria that the Labor Inspectorate wants to impose abruptly puts at risk the training and employment of five million unemployed and active workers”, which would cause “a real chaos in national training and in the employability of unemployed workers ”.
The federation was sanctioned with the new criteria imposed by the Administration, which would affect the rest of Spain, and says that it feels like a “scapegoat”
Fremm had an inspection before the summer by Labor that resulted a few weeks ago in a file with a high sanction, along with the official discharge from the teaching staff. The metal employer’s association initially considered that it was a “routine inspection”, while it claims to have been working with the hiring of self-employed workers for more than 30 years, like the rest of the accredited training entities in Spain, which figure in 13,400. However, the alarms went off with the ongoing file.
In the opinion of Fremm and the business organizations, “the different rules governing recruitment in training centers give rise to a lax interpretation, so they ask the Government of Spain for an urgent solution that guarantees legal certainty, thus avoiding discretion to the time to apply them, and in the meantime, the paralysis of files in progress. It also adds that “the hiring of autonomous teachers is covered by the European Union and by the Law on Training for Employment itself.”
Effect of four years ago
In Fremm’s opinion, with this precedent that directly involves him “the door is opened to direct review of educational centers in the last four years, and to being denounced with the precedent created.” It maintains that the step taken by the Inspection “would affect a wide range of educational and training entities, including public and private universities, institutes, vocational training centers, and academies for preparation for competitive examinations, which have professionals as freelancers. to teach their classes. There would also be repercussions for private classes in homes, exams preparers, technical conferences and talks, among other areas ”. According to Fremm, “just by counting the number of college students affected, the volume of those affected would skyrocket.”
Rector Luján clarifies that he does not hire freelancers; and Croem stopped teaching employment training courses years ago
Fremm explained that its Integrated Vocational Training Center has an annual average of 5,000 trained workers, of which 1,000 are unemployed and under Youth Guarantee. Of the latter, 8 out of 10 find employment, while the remaining 4,000 are workers who are qualified in the advances of the market, including qualification in new technologies. The metal employers stressed that if the criteria of the Labor Inspectorate prosper, the training centers managed by business organizations, unions and private companies “would be forced to close, leaving active and unemployed workers without access to an essential qualification in these moments, and especially vulnerable groups, including unemployed young people and also long-term and over 50 years old ”.
UMU is unaffected
The rector of the University of Murcia, José Luján, clarified yesterday that these guidelines from the Labor Inspectorate “do not affect” the academic institution. He specified that the UMU, like other universities and educational centers, impart “regulated training”, and has not hired staff or self-employed professionals. In this sense, they are contracts for third parties. Regarding master’s courses, there are “external collaborations”, and for a very specific time, of freelancers, professionals or civil servants, supervised by a tenured professor. In this sense, Luján indicated that they do not feel concerned by the statement released by Fremm yesterday. He commented that there is a ruling from the Supreme Court two years ago that clarifies labor relations, including training for employment.
Sources from the Croem employer’s association, for their part, indicated that this situation does not affect them either. “We left the training system years ago,” said a spokesperson for the organization.
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