Reduction of working hours in Spain it seems a reality. After the breakdown of negotiations with the employers, the Government has committed to passing a law that has been at the center of controversy for several months.
The intention of the Ministry of Labor, led by Yolanda Díaz, has been from the beginning to reach an agreement together with the unions and employers. However, the continuous refusals of CEOE and Ceypme to reach an agreement between the three parties have caused the negotiation table to be divided, and now they are unions and Government the protagonists of a law that could be approved with the beginning of the new year.
However, this law does not only aim to reduce workers’ working hours to 37.5 hours. The objective of the Work is to establish a greater regulation of digital disconnection, in addition to greater control of time registration.
Digital disconnection, a priority
Yolanda Díaz has insisted a lot on the digital disconnection of workers. This is a right that allows employees not having to respond to messages you may receive from the company outside of working hours.
With the evolution of technologies, electronic devices have become fundamental in the development of companies, being one of the main means of internal communication and serving to carry out many jobs.
But this fundamental use has caused companies to contact workers outside of their working day, preventing the employee from “enjoying” their rest time. The minister has assured on several occasions that “it is necessary to regulate digital disconnection to ensure a healthy balance between workers’ work and personal lives”.
Now, in an interview for RTVE, Díaz has once again focused on this issue, stating that “it cannot be a privilege of a few” and that the Government must give the worker certainty about when they have to work or not. “Do they have to continue working when they receive an email from the employer when they get home?” “I already told them no.”he assured during the interview.
Time control record
Likewise, the law will include stricter regulation of the time registration of workers in their companies. The measure intends that the registry It would stop being on paper and become digital, which would make it easier for the Labor Inspection to verify the hours worked by workers.
Yolanda Díaz sends a message to the CEOE
The second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, took advantage of her intervention at the inauguration of the 44th Confederal Congress of UGT to guarantee the famous reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours despite not having the support of the employers’ association. His initial intention was to reach a “tripartite” agreement where all the parties agreed with the proposed proposals, but given that this union was not feasible, the employers have abandoned the negotiation and now it will be the Government together with the unions that will have to set the measures in a draft law that must be approved in the Cortes Generales.
From the ministry, the intention continues to be that The standard comes into force in the first quarter of 2025 and does so with areduction that stands at 37.5 hoursnot in the 38.5 hours planned from the beginning. The objective was to carry out a scaled reduction, which will not affect companies so aggressively. However, with the lack of agreements, Labor has decided to skip that step and establish the 37.5 hours directly.