What will be the V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) is now ready for signing after the governing bodies of CEOE, Cepyme, UGT and CCOO have ratified the draft. The agreement between employers and unions establishes a multi-year framework of recommendations for the negotiation of collective agreements, including a 10% salary increase in three years, but also indications regarding teleworking, artificial intelligence (AI) or equality.
The document, to which 20min has had access, invites the development of teleworking in future collective agreements, after its accelerated implementation during the pandemic. Specifically, it suggests identifying the positions and functions susceptible to remote work and under what conditions -minimum face-to-face hours and maximum duration of teleworking-, as well as the mechanisms for compensation by the company for expenses related to equipment and necessary tools to put it into practice. And it is that the employer is responsible for providing and maintaining the equipment, although the possibility of regulating “the terms for the use for personal reasons of the computer equipment made available by the company” is open.
At the same time, employers and unions recommend establishing measures to guarantee the right to digital disconnection. “If any type of call or communication occurs outside of working hours, workers will not be obliged to respond, nor will hierarchical superiors be able to require responses outside of it, unless there are exceptional circumstances of force majeure,” the text clarifies. , which adds that “companies will guarantee that workers who make use of this right will not be affected by any differential treatment or sanction”.
Likewise, the social agents ask to guarantee security, transparency and human control in AI systems, principles that they consider also applicable to public administrations. “The companies will provide the legal representatives of the workers with transparent and understandable information on the processes that are based on it in the human resources procedures (hiring, evaluation, promotion and dismissal) and will guarantee that there is no prejudice or discrimination,” it says. The document.
In parallel, the agreement reached between boards of trustees and the union is committed to promoting “a new culture of permanent learning” for the constant updating of the skills of workers, as well as for a professional requalification that allows “to move from sectors with a surplus of personnel to those with difficulties to find people with the required professional profile. “Collective bargaining should promote the hiring of young people and people in transition in employment, promoting training contracts and dual training,” indicates the text, which includes as recommendations for collective agreements the commitments to convert training contracts into indefinite ones.
recruitment of women
Beyond training and the use of new technologies, the social agents advocate “establishing measures that favor the hiring of women, especially in sectors, companies and occupations where they are underrepresented, to contribute to real equality and reduce the gap of genre”. In addition, it is advisable to “regulate criteria for promotions and promotions, so that they do not lead to indirect discrimination, based on objective elements of qualification and ability”.
At the same time, the framework agreement invites to establish “internal flexibility measures that facilitate conciliation”, as well as to “develop the terms of the exercise of the right to request the adaptation of working hours”. In fact, CEOE, Cepyme, UGT and CCOO say they understand “it is essential to adopt flexible formulas for organizing working time to the extent that the production processes and services provided allow it”. For this, they propose the preferential fixing of days in annual calculation and the implementation of the irregular distribution of the day, as well as the rationalization of work hours and flexibility in entry and exit.
The social agents also recommend flexible formulas with regard to retirement. Against the plans of the Government, which intends that workers choose to delay their retirement, employers and unions are committed to recognizing in collective agreements “access to partial retirement with a relief contract”, for the maintenance of employment and rejuvenation of the templates.
Likewise, the social agents collect in writing their “concern about the indicators of temporary disability derived from common contingencies” and urge the establishment of procedures that allow the study of the causes, incidence and duration of sick leave. In parallel, in terms of security, it is recommended to “promote attention to aging and its implications in the development of work activity” and “advance in the risk assessment of remote jobs” and “in the preventive management of psychosocial risks.
Beyond the recommendations for collective bargaining, the new AENC also points to the Government, which it urges to modify the price review regulations in public contracts. This is a point claimed by the employer as a result of the increases in the minimum wage, with the aim of being able to pass on the increase in wage costs in contracts with the administration.
Finally, CEOE, Cepyme, UGT and CCOO are summoned to negotiate a new agreement three months before the end of the validity of the recently agreed AENC, in 2025. Until then, a Monitoring Committee made up of three representatives from each of the signatory organizations will be in charge of ensuring compliance with the new agreement.