Her proposals for a extra versatile implementation of this system to scale back working hours promoted by the Sanchez authorities in Spain have been to be submitted on July 1 to the Ministry of Labor by the nation’s employer associations. Madrid’s purpose is to scale back weekly working hours from 40 hours to 37.5 hours on January 1, 2025 after the subsequent interval, “as quickly as doable” in line with the federal government, will likely be diminished to 38.5 hours.
The consultations for the labor reform have began since January 2024 in Spain, however the president of the Confederation of Employers’ Associations of the nation (CEOE) ADonio Garametti he protests that “this isn’t a social dialogue, it’s a monologue”. In line with him, every thing has been pre-decided by the federal government and the dialog is only for the sake of it, with none actual motive.
“Expertise makes it doable”
Lowering the working week to 37.5 hours was one of many central election pledges of Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Occasion, which governs in partnership with the (much more left-wing) Sumar platform. As of 2020, the vice-prime minister of Sanchez and the minister of labor (in command of the reform) is Yolanda Dias, a lawyer from Galicia specializing in labor points, a former member of the Communist Occasion and the founding father of the Sumar platform in 2023.
“By implementing the measure to scale back weekly working hours, the Sánchez authorities intends to ship a message of optimism to a progressive voters that has been disillusioned after months of parliamentary paralysis and the disagreeable controversies sparked by the legislation amnestying Catalan separatists,” he mentioned. from Madrid the correspondent of the French “Les Echos” Cécile Thibaut.
The rapporteur of the reform, Yolanda Dias, additionally undertook the “change of political agenda” operation, on behalf of the federal government. “Lowering working hours with out decreasing wages provides staff extra time to reside,” mentioned the 53-year-old politician. As a result of “we’re within the first quarter of the twenty first century and know-how permits it,” Dias defined, recalling that the 40-hour workday has been utilized constantly since 1983, though some assessments have been carried out within the nation to ascertain the four-day work week.
The OECD is an ally
It’s sensational that within the matter of decreasing working hours the Spanish authorities has as an ally the Group for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD), which brazenly helps the measure. Nonetheless, “many specialists marvel concerning the penalties of a measure that’s tough to implement in an economic system characterised by low productiveness and closely primarily based on seasonal actions, such because the tourism and hospitality sector, and requiring a margin of flexibility in work and likewise compensatory measures for employers”, Thibaut writes in “Les Echos”.
“The administration of working time is among the details of social dialogue and the topic of collective agreements, however it will be extra prudent to depend on negotiation inside corporations, as this takes into consideration the particularities of every case individually”, believes economist Raymond Torres , analyst on the Spanish analysis agency Funcas.
For his or her half, the unions level out that step one to introduce 38.5 hours of labor per week won’t have any substantial impression as a result of a lot of collective agreements have already adopted a discount in working hours in apply. As an alternative, the second section to maneuver to 37.5 hours will have an effect on greater than 10 million staff within the nation, say unions, who level out that public sector staff already profit from the 37.5-hour work week.
Lower in productiveness
“In actuality staff who get pleasure from a better diploma of job safety and have extra abilities and better coaching already work fewer hours,” observes Sergi Jimenez-Martin, professor at Pompeu Fabra College and researcher on the Fedea Basis for Utilized Economics.
“Henceforth at the moment the query to be answered is whether or not these training professions that require extra bodily effort and fewer talent can entry the brand new measure. The principle argument of those that oppose it’s the threat of decreasing productiveness. However we discover that productiveness in Spain has been paralyzed for 20 years. So one assumes that the issue lies elsewhere and never in working hours”, notes the professor and researcher.
“The employer isn’t satisfied by these arguments and accuses the Ministry of Labor of inflexibility and lack of realism”, experiences the correspondent of “Les Echos” in Madrid and quotes the clear warning of the pinnacle of the Confederation of Employers, Antonio Garamedi: “The non-public sector of the Spanish economic system is made up of small and really small companies, usually weak. They’ve little leeway and are those who will endure probably the most from the federal government’s measure.”
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