Every week, there are several announcements of legislative developments in the labor field launched by the second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, within the framework of the campaign for the Galician elections.. The string of headlines – still far from becoming facts – is generating confusion at the collective bargaining tables – who do not know what they should negotiate, so in some cases they choose to extend the agreements or plan shorter durations – and slowing down decisions. investment of companies, as confirmed to this medium by different law firms.
“The succession of announcements by the Government about possible modifications in labor matters has a direct impact on the negotiation of collective agreements and/or company agreements. As an example, most of the agreements provide for a weekly working day greater than 37.5 hours (maximum working day that the Government intends to establish for the year 2025 according to the commitment contained in the agreement between PSOE and SUMAR).. Logically, the announced modification of the maximum working day affects one of the fundamental matters of negotiation in an agreement, potentially altering the balance of the negotiations and causing the consensus reached between employers/companies and the social part to be without effect in short term and should be reviewed,” says Borja González, legal counsel at Laboral de Gómez Acebo y Pombo.
The reduction of the working day is one of Díaz's star announcements for this legislature but, despite the fact that she wants to approve it imminently, the employers and the unions have already warned that a deep negotiation is necessary – which they will carry out on their own. and will start this week – on the way in which this cut can be applied in the different economic sectors.
In any case, given the insistence of the vice president and her team, who assure that the reduction will occur without a reduction in salaries regardless of what they agree to in the bipartite dialogue, the representatives who are negotiating at the tables do not know what to expect: negotiate Today an hourly wage could be counterproductive if tomorrow a smaller number of working hours is imposed.
“You cannot negotiate a salary increase if after negotiating it you have to lower the working day for free,” agrees David Díaz, Labor partner at Baker McKenzie, who points out that “collective bargaining has two fundamental avenues: one economic and the other organizational, and “You have to negotiate knowing the rules of the game in both.”. In his opinion, the number of changes that are being announced and that could be sufficient pretext to comprehensively reform the Workers' Statute, “are having an impact and are putting pressure on the existing tables, making there less willingness to get down to business.” work until things become clear.”
Added to the reduction of the working day are other modifications such as the prevalence of regional agreements – which were not approved because they were included in the royal decree-law that reformed the unemployment benefit and which Podemos overturned – and even the interpretation that should be given to paid leave. These issues “are generating multiple queries by the negotiators of both sectoral and business collective agreements and slowing down their negotiation.”. In anticipation of possible regulatory changes, negotiating agents try to look for solutions and formulas that can offer them legally secure solutions so as not to be left behind in the face of possible modifications,” Alfredo Aspra, founder of Labormatters Abogados, explains to this medium.
“The agreements are also bogged down, having to adjust the agreed paid leaves to those published by royal decree-law 5/2023, which are an accumulation of insecurity and interpretations to which is added the pending parental leave,” says Agustín Benavent. , a labor activist from CECA MAGÁN, who sees the Minimum Wage as another source of conflict because, having increased two points more than what is recommended by the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), “it is transferred to the tables that that is the base salary”.
Investment stops
The drip of announcements not only has an impact on negotiations, but companies are stopping their investment decisions due to uncertainty, something that can already be seen in the National Accounts data, which shows that it is still 5% below the pre-pandemic level. .
Eloy Castañer, Labor partner at Garrigues, points out that the time that elapses from the announcements until the measures are approved “will generate obvious uncertainty that can affect collective bargaining processes and business decisions regarding both investment and organization.” of the current structures”. “If to the above we add the stagnation of economic growth and an announced restriction on the use of internal flexibility measures (limiting the possibility of making changes to working conditions or resorting to a withdrawal from the collective agreement) and external flexibility ( limiting the causality of dismissals or increasing the cost of compensation), in an environment in which the increasing labor costs stand out (due, among other factors, to the increase in the SMI, the increase in contributions paid by the company, to the extension of work permits, the planned reduction of working hours…) the uncertainty scenario is even greater,” he warns.
To make matters worse, “many of the published regulations suffer from little legal rigor and a lot of 'political' content that makes it difficult to create an environment of stability that encourages growth, hiring and maintaining employment.”. In general, in the companies we advise there reigns a feeling of instability in the face of so many announcements and 'probe balloons' of constant regulatory changes, from which it can be inferred that the negotiations that are going to begin or that are in progress for collective agreements are seen affected by it,” emphasizes José Antonio Otero, senior lawyer at the Casa de Ley firm.
