The law to reduce working hours at 37 and a half with the same salary is heading to the Congress of Deputies. After more than 40 years without touching the maximum workers’ schedule, the coalition government has approved this bill so that its processing in Parliament, in which a difficult negotiation is expected, with a new obstacle: the amendment to the totality announced yesterday by Juns. The text approved on Tuesday, which Eldiario.es has accessed, includes some changes, among which it emphasizes that the margin to reduce the day until December 31 of this year extends to all companies, and not only those that have a collective agreement, as it appeared before.
The bill is maintained in the central issues, as the Ministry of Labor had pointed out, such as the reinforcement of the time control and the tightening of the sanctions for breaching it, some more concretion on the right to digital disconnection and, of course, the measure that raises more attention: the reduction of the maximum working day of 40 hours a week at 37 and a half hours, without wageless wage.
“Today is a day of the utmost importance for our country. The measures we have approved are not one more standard, we have a trajectory of more than five years changing the labor market, modernizing our country, and today the reduction of the working day advances towards a Spain that will be better,” said the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, leader of adding in the progressive coalition. It is “a great news for our productive fabric, companies and workers,” said the Executive spokeswoman, Pilar Alegría, who highlighted the new employment record data achieved this April, of more than 21.5 million workers.
Work provides that the new maximum day reach around 12.5 million working people, almost 70% of total employees in the country. Of these, 10.5 million are full -time workers and another two million, people who work part -time, mostly women. For territories, Yolanda Díaz stressed that Catalonia is the region with the most workers achieved by measure, 2.2 million people, followed by Madrid and Andalusia, with two million people each.
The new maximum limit not only means working less time, but would increase the salary of the hour worked. Thus, if applied, it can mean working less hours charging the same or in the case of people with part -time contract, the option of maintaining the schedule is proposed, charging more.
Yolanda Díaz stressed that “the government has fulfilled its word”, applying the coalition agreement to reduce the workday of 12 million people, and “now has to speak popular sovereignty”, in reference of the Congress of Deputies. The second vice president has opened to negotiate the content of the law with only a “red line”: the reduction of the day. “All negotiation, the margin is absolute,” said Díaz.
The head of Labor has affirmed that it is the turn that each political formation is positioned on this measure and, despite the announcement of the amendment to the entire Junts, the vice president has mainly charged against the PP and its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “Is Mr. Feijóo to maneuver to knock down the reduction of the day as he did with the labor reform? Will he damage his country?” He said.
Negotiate with the workers the new day
The Government extends this adaptation period, until the end of the year, to comply with the new maximum working day in all companies, with or without collective agreement: “To carry out the necessary adaptations that ensure compliance with the provisions of this standard, in particular, the provisions of the ordinary day of maximum work.” Of course, through a negotiation process with representatives of working people.
Companies must negotiate these adaptations to the maximum day of 37 and a half hours, either with the company committees or the representatives of the elected workforce or, if there are no such figures, with a negotiating commission expressly constituted for this adaptation, whose composition also regulates the normative text.
This greater adaptation period for companies is one of the most relevant novelties of the bill, which the Ministry of Labor only agreed with the unions, given the rejection of the employers’ employers, and that follows one of the recommendations of the Economic and Social Council (CES), which considered “advisable to provide the draft of a more flexible framework” in its entry into force “that allows an effective compliance with the norm”.
Another news of the text approved this Tuesday is the express regulation that the time control and the new maximum limit of the day also apply to household workers. In this specific case, the Government raises the possibility that it is carried out “by any physical or digital means that is provided to the capacities and resources available to the employer and the working person and that guarantees compliance with said obligation effectively”.
Reinforcement of time control and higher sanctions
The law has another very relevant element in the modifications of time control, the mandatory registration of the workday that all companies must meet. The registration will necessarily have to be digital, so it puts an end to paper signings that exist in many companies. It is agreed that “objectivity, reliability and accessibility of the day registration” must be guaranteed, for which measures are agreed as “unequivocally”, the working person who regulates the registration “as well as the possible modifications” of the data, has to be agreed.
Although the most relevant change is that the registration of the day “must be remotely accessible for the Labor and Social Security inspection and for the legal representation of the working persons.” This inspection surveillance access to real -time records is one of the most prominent advances by the Ministry of Labor, as a way to end irregularities in work schedules, one of the most detected business abuses.
The law also hardens fines for breaching the time control. As happened with the abuse of temporary contracts in the labor reform, the Ministry of Labor has agreed to “individualize” the sanctions on the registration of the day. That is, instead of imposing a fine on a company for not having time control, a sanction would be imposed for each worker in the company.
In addition, the amounts of the fines for serious infractions related to the working time are increased, which can reach 10,000 euros, instead of the current 7,500 euros. A type of severe and a very serious infraction is also created related to abuses in the time of day that involve a health risk.
Regarding the right to digital disconnection, it is already recognized in Spain, but with little compliance, the concrete law: “The business duty to guarantee the right to disconnection implies, among others, the absence of any request to carry out a work benefit and the absence of communication of the company or person in whom it delegates, as well as third parties in a commercial relationship with the company, with the working person through any device, tool, to tool right not to be located outside your work schedule. ” The explicit regulation that is an “inalienable” right.
“We are the government of the workers, as we have been being for many years,” said Yolanda Díaz and has summoned the political forces to support a measure “that is won in the street.” “His responsibility lies in changing people’s lives or choosing to knock down a rule that is key,” the Minister of Labor has completed.
Source: www.eldiario.es
