The Government wants to toughen dismissals and make it difficult to cancel the agreement

The agreement that the PSOE has reached with Sumar to have its support for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez includes the commitment to toughen the causes of dismissal and to reinforce the role of the unions in cases of cancellation of the agreement – situations in which that a company decides not to apply an agreement because there are economic reasons that prevent it -, so that it is mandatory to negotiate them in all cases.

The document, of 48 pages and in which there are 24 mentions of “employment”, the fundamental axis of this legislature, includes the commitment to “establish guarantees for workers against dismissal, complying with the European Social Charter and reinforcing causality in cases of termination of the employment relationship”. Specifically, the European Social Charter states that all workers have the right not to be dismissed “without valid reasons for doing so related to their skills or conduct, or based on the operating needs of the company, establishment or service.” “, so that those who are dismissed without valid reason are entitled to “adequate compensation or other appropriate relief.”

UGT has relied precisely on this wording to sue Spain before the European Committee of Social Rights – an organization dedicated to ensuring that national legislation complies with the provisions of the Charter -, alleging that our system of dismissal compensation is insufficient and does not guarantee fair protection. The lawsuit, in line with others presented and won by unions in Italy and France, is pending and will probably lead to a ruling by the Strasbourg Committee encouraging the Government to change the legislation, which could open the door to a kind of à la carte dismissal compensation based on the characteristics of each worker.

Regarding the drop-off mechanisms, in which companies rely on not to apply the clauses of the collective agreement, the Government undertakes to “strengthen the guarantees of workers in substantial modifications to working conditions and drop-offs.” , review the causes so that only in situations that affect the viability of the company can these procedures be resorted to, which must be negotiated, giving priority to negotiation with the union organizations and guaranteeing the reversible nature of the measures adopted.

Picking up is an option that is included in article 82.3 of the Workers' Statute, which stipulates that, although “the collective agreements regulated by this law bind all employers and workers included within its scope of application and at all times of its validity”, “without prejudice to the above, when economic, technical, organizational or production causes occur, by agreement between the company and the representatives of the workers authorized to negotiate a collective agreement, proceeding may be made, after developing a consultation period under the terms of article 41.4, to disapply in the company the working conditions provided for in the applicable collective agreement, whether sector or company agreement.”

The elements that the company may not comply with are those related to the working day, schedule and distribution of working time, shift work regime, remuneration system and salary amount, work and performance system, functions and voluntary improvements of the action. protector of Social Security.

According to the current standard, there must be “proven reasons” related to “the company's competitiveness, productivity or technical or work organization” to activate these mechanisms, but the Executive document wants to restrict their use only to cases in which the viability of the company is at risk, which will limit the possibilities of companies to take advantage of this option.

To activate this mechanism, if it affects only one worker, the Statute states that the decision “must be notified by the employer to the affected worker and his legal representatives at least fifteen days in advance of the date of its effectiveness”, without that it is necessary to negotiate it; but the Government indicates that from now on these procedures “must be negotiated, giving priority to negotiation with union organizations and guaranteeing the reversible nature of the measures adopted.”

If the termination is collective – it affects several workers – the Statute does establish that the decision must be preceded by a period of consultation with the legal representatives of the workers, lasting no more than fifteen days, or, if there are none, with a commission made up of a maximum of three workers.

Negotiating tools

The agreement suggests that the Government will respond to one of the demands of the unions during the last legislature: to have qualified information on how companies are really doing in order to have negotiation tools when requesting salary improvements.

CCOO even proposed that an Economic Information System for Collective Bargaining be created, which would be integrated into the Tax Studies and Statistics Service of the Tax Agency, to offer information from official sources and current records on sales (based on tax returns). of output VAT), purchases (input VAT) and salary payments (personal income tax form 111) since 2014. “It is important that the Government is willing to facilitate and make the necessary data transparent,” they claimed then.

Now, the acting Government picks up the gauntlet and promises to improve “the economic information available to the negotiators of collective agreements at a supra-corporate level, to enable a more balanced distribution of income and productivity gains.”