HE 55% Private sector employees who are currently covered collective bargaining agreement Maximum working hours will be reduced 38.5 hours weekly this year. This is derived from data collected by. Ministry of Labor on collective bargaining, analyzed by the union on this Tuesday CCOO at a press conference. The Center points out that the impact of this measure this year will be significant, but the big jump will come in 2025, when the Government has committed to reducing the maximum working day by 2020. 37.5 hours per week. There, approximately 87% of employees currently covered by the contract will benefit.
Second vice president and Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz will begin discussions with social representatives this Thursday to determine how to achieve this reduction from the current 40 hours to 38.5 hours. He appeared at the Congress of Deputies last Monday and sent a message to businessmen who are reluctant, if not against, the change: “I would like to reach an agreement […] But if it can’t be a trio, it can be a two piece“.
The government declares to the public its determination to realize this reduction through law, which will have a gradual impact on private sector employees. Changes planned for this year will affect less than half of employees is covered by the collective agreement. In the public sector, a 37.5-hour week is now the norm and the Administration is moving towards a 35-hour week at varying speeds.
According to data collected by the Ministry of Labor, just over half of employees in 2023 had more than 1,759 annual working hours stipulated in their collective agreements. Weekly allocations exceed 38.5 hours per week. It is this group and those employees who are not covered by any contract and are directly referred to in the Labor Code who should most notice the reduction in working hours.
According to CCOO, the workers The sectors that will benefit most from companies in rural areas will be accommodation and trade. for this change. Although data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) also includes branches such as the manufacturing industry, scientific activities or construction. But many of these workers legally have fewer working hours per week, but their actual working hours eventually exceed those hours.
Considering this gap that sometimes arises between what is legally prescribed and the programs carried out in companies, CCOO secretary general Unai Sordo said: The importance of including and adding patronal agreement completion of reduction to 38.5 hours (and later to 37.5 hours). With their complicity, the center understands that compliance will be easier and the need for Labor Inspector intervention in the event of hypothetical fraud will be less.
Complicity will be assumed to be even more necessary in 2025, when the government has committed to reducing the maximum weekly working day to 37.5 hours. What does it affect 9 out of 10 employees is covered by the collective agreement. In this sense, Sordo defended the reduction of working hours “as a virtuous way to discuss productivity” and the benefits that advances in digitalization and artificial intelligence create for companies.
increasing salaries
CCOO evaluated how collective bargaining developed beyond the day through 2023. This remained a bittersweet outcome. On the one hand, the agreements signed in 2023, salary increase 4.6%One percentage point above inflation. This is a positive issue for the interests of 3.7 million working beneficiaries.
Sordo also emphasized the “revitalizing” effect of the general agreement reached with the employers’ union in May and congratulated him, saying, “Salaries increased in 2023 and collective bargaining was a great lever.” This agreement between leaders envisaged a minimum salary increase of 4% for 2023, which was fulfilled according to the data presented. The expected increase for this year is 3 percent.
However, the average salary change for last year’s contracts, that is, including those signed previously and with salary increases applied every year, was 3.5%. On par with inflation, which allowed Maintain purchasing power in general Although the deals were closed at a 3.5% revaluation compared to an average CPI of 8.5%, it did not help compensate for even a tenth of the purchasing power lost last year.
Another negative point of the Union is that its desire to generalize the provisions that will protect purchasing power against unpredictable increases in CPI has not been generalized. Only 14.7% of renewed contracts affecting 23.4% of employees salary guarantee clause. Headquarters informed that “The results are not positive.” At this point, employers have drawn a red line, and the vast majority of industries have opted to offer and not require more specific increases.