Yolanda Díaz corners Feijóo to reduce the working day in the UGT Congress: “Are you going to do the same as with the labor reform?”

The speech by the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, this Monday at the UGT Confederal Congress was already news that attracted and anticipated a lot of attention. And the vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has taken advantage of it with a direct question to the opposition leader to support one of the Government’s star policies: the reduction of working hours. “Are you going to do the same with the working day as with the labor reform?” Yolanda Díaz asked Feijóo, raising applause from the public.

With a president of the PP trying to contain his face, next to the leader of CCOO, Unai Sordo, and two seats from the president of the employers’ association, Antonio Garamendi, with a serious gesture, Yolanda Díaz has asked the opposition leader on several occasions if the PP “will do the same” with the future vote on the law to reduce the maximum working day as what it did with the labor reform. That is, vote against.

Díaz recalled that the labor reform went ahead thanks to the mistaken vote of a PP deputy, Alberto Casero. The PP also appealed the legislation before the Constitutional Court. At that time, the leader of the PP was another, Pablo Casado.

Thus, taking advantage of the scenario, Yolanda Díaz has insisted to Alberto Núñez Feijóo on the need to support the law on the reduction of working hours as a “positive” and “State” measure, for the benefit of working people regardless of their status. ideology, has maintained the person in charge of the Labor portfolio.

“I understand the political differences, but I believe that state policies should not be played with. It is too important for people’s lives,” said Yolanda Díaz.

The UGT management has also demanded that the PP leader not oppose the reduction of the working day. The general secretary of the union, Pepe Álvarez, invited the president of the Popular Party to intervene in this congress in which he will be re-elected as head of UGT for a third and final term. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had intervened before Yolanda Díaz, has defended his proposal for a conciliation law.

“It doesn’t matter who governs”

A few minutes before, the Minister of Labor had already raised the UGT audience in applause against the cuts of the last Popular Party government, the one led by Mariano Rajoy. Yolanda Díaz has recalled the “Fridays of Sorrows”, in reference to the councils of ministers of the last financial crisis, which resulted in policies of cuts and austerity, such as labor or pension reform and cuts in unemployment protection.

“It doesn’t matter who governs,” insisted Yolanda Díaz, amidst a great applause, who asked the UGT unionists to “defend” the progressive majority of the coalition government. “Go out democratically to defend the Government of Spain. Today we have another country, other data and the data is favorable,” said the second vice president.

“With all solemnity, I tell you that the threats are very worrying. The politics of destruction are returning in many places, devastating wherever they go. Can you imagine a country in which cuts in services and rights return? Think about it, my father reminded me yesterday,” said Yolanda Díaz, who had some words of remembrance for the Argentine workers who are facing the Milei cuts, among others.