The Spanish Government is proposing aid to small businesses which reduce their working hours to 37.5 hours.
- One of the red lines of Sumar's PSOE was precisely the reduction of the working day. However, the granting of aid was not included in the initial plans.
Minister Yolanda Díaz wanted to leave the case resolved by July, but it was not possible due to the rejection of the employers, the problem of arithmetic in the Congress of Deputies and the doubts of the PSOE. After the break, negotiations resumed yesterday. The bureau consists of the CCOO and UGT trade unions, and the employers CEOE and Cepyme, together with the Ministry of Labour.
More than 40 years ago the 40-hour working day was implemented in Spain and Hego Euskal Herria, and since then it has not adapted – in Hego Euskal Herria there are many local agreements that have established a maximum 38.5 hours working day. In recent years there have been many voices calling for the general barrier to be lowered. The political party Sumar had called on the PSOE to fulfil this obligation in exchange for forming a coalition of government. Both said yes, and in October last year Minister Diaz said that the government's goal was to reduce working hours to 38.5 hours in 2024, to 37.5 hours in 2025, keeping wages and as a challenge for the future, to 35 hours.
It seems, however, that what was said at the outset is being tarnished, because so far companies were not expected to have profits, and that seems to have been due to pressure from the employers. Minister Diaz said at her meeting on Monday that companies with fewer than ten employees could benefit from aid to their workers to reduce the maximum working time to 37.5 and hire a new worker to fill the vacancies on the day.
"We don't accept veto"
That is, therefore, Diaz’s proposal. The total consensus is not essential, of course, because the last word is held by the Spanish Government itself and the Congress of Deputies. The Secretary of State for Labour, Joaquín Pérez Rey, pointed this out, referring to the employers' organization CEOE: "We are not going to accept anyone's right of veto," he added.
The Getxoztarra Antonio Garamendi, president of the CEOE, has strongly criticised the Spanish Government’s intention to reduce working time. It has not made a small gesture to negotiate, it has not emerged from the negative attitude and some of its statements have been controversial, such as that the Spanish Government "is ruling against companies" and that the reduction of working hours to 37.5 is "a gift" for the workers, "a gift of twelve days' holiday".
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