The law to reduce the working day, star measure of the Ministry of Labor, is expected to decline this Wednesday in Congress. Junts has already confirmed the department of Yolanda Díaz that he will maintain his amendment to the whole, a departure veto that PP and Vox have also presented. Therefore, the three matches will lie down the reduction of the 40 -hour day at 37 and a half hours a week, but also other related ones that the bill contains, such as the reinforcement of the time registration and the right to digital disconnection, among others.
This bill comes from an agreement between the Ministry of Labor and the majority unions, from which the employers' employers were unmotive, who have rejected the reduction of the day by law and requested their “brake” in Parliament, since they defend that this issue is addressed within collective bargaining, by agreements in companies and sectors.
This Wednesday's veto will prevent its processing in Congress, that is, the debate of amendments to its content, in which political formations can make changes to the text and in which the government had committed to negotiate to try to reach an agreement. For example, with the inclusion of support measures to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), such as direct aid that declined in the social dialogue before the 'no' of entrepreneurs, among others.
The majority unions, CCOO and UGT, have summoned protests throughout the country on Wednesday, a front of the Congress itself during the vote of the norm, to demand PP, Junts and Vox that allow the processing of the law. Workers' organizations remember that it has a majority support of citizens (of all political parties), according to surveys.
The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has already affirmed her willingness to present another bill with this measure, a flag of adding in the elections and within the government. This Tuesday, Díaz insisted on sending a message of “hope”: “We are going to win. There are defeats that are won in the street, and in the history of class struggle we know well who wins over time.”
Next, what are the concrete measures that will decay this Wednesday with the veto to this bill will be broken down.
Maximum 37 and a half hours
A phrase in the text, but the undisputed protagonist of the law. The bill raises the reduction of the maximum working day from 40 hours a week, currently in force since it was approved in the 80s, at 37 and a half hours, without salary decline. “The maximum duration of the ordinary work day will be 37 and a half hours a week of effective work in annual computing,” collects the bill. The planned adaptation period was the end of 2025, a date that union sources believed that some extension could suffer in the parliamentary debate, which has finally not taken place.
The measure is estimated that it would reach 12.5 million workers, now with days higher than the new maximum, although not all with the same time cut. On average, the Ministry of Labor encrypted the reduction in 48 minutes a week. The most achieved sectors, by number of workers, were trade, manufacturing industry, hospitality and construction. By communities, the most reached were Catalonia (with 2.2 million workers), followed by Madrid and Andalusia, with two million each.
Salary increase to workers
The bill also includes salary increases derived from the new maximum day. On the one hand, an increase in the price of the hour worked for workers who would see their schedules reduced, as they would keep the same salary. This is transcendent, for example, in the face of overtime that some sectors and companies remunerate taking as a reference the Ordanaria, and that would increase its price.
On the other hand, the law contemplates a salary increase for part -time workers, the vast majority women (73%). This is the right of people with part -time contracts that are governed today for maximum days above 37 and a half hours a week “to continue carrying out the same number of hours of work that they were making” and to receive the “proportional increase in their salary.” This is because they would go to work more percentage of the full -time day they have as a reference.
The working people with a reduced day (again women) were also benefited salaryly, since they were expected to have the “right to continue carrying out the same number of work hours that they were making”, with the consequent increase in salary.
Hours registration reinforcement
The reinforcement of the control of the day or time registration also falls, which all workers must meet daily. It is contemplated that the registration has to be necessarily digital, ending paper signings that exist in many companies and that according to sources of the Labor Inspection are more susceptible to fraud. “Objectivity, reliability and accessibility of the Conference Registry” must be guaranteed, for which measures are included as “unequivocally” the working person who regulates the “as well as the possible modifications” of the data has to be identified “unequivocally”.
Another of the most relevant changes, for what it means for the surveillance and control of possible abuse, is that the registration of the day is accessible to the Labor Inspection and the legal representation of the staff in real and remote time.
Increase in non -compliance sanctions
The norm also hardens fines for breaching the record of day. As happened with the abuse of temporary contracts in the labor reform, the sanctions are 'individualized. That is, instead of imposing a fine on a company for not having time control, a sanction would be imposed for each worker in that company.
In addition, the amounts of the fines for serious infractions related to the working time are increased, which can reach 10,000 euros, instead of the current 7,500 euros. A type of serious and a very serious infraction is also created related to abuses in the time of working hours that imply a health risk.
Vice President Yolanda Díaz already warned that, in case of decaying the norm, the Government will approve by Royal Decree (without the need for the Parliament to pass) the reinforcement of the time registry. In the Ministry of Labor they have insisted on this idea in recent weeks, although it will be necessary to see what measures can be regulated by regulatory means and which ones do they decide at the moment for requiring their approval through a law. This case is, for example, the increase in fines, which requires changes in The smooth.
Measures in favor of workers in judgments
The bill also incorporates some probative measures of the day in favor of the workers, relevant to clarify the schedules in judicial conflicts, in which it is usually difficult to demonstrate the overtime or the actual days of the employees. For example, the rule contemplates that “the overtime registered day by day” will be delivered in a copy to the working person.
In addition, it is established that breach by the company of the Conference Registry will lead to “the ordinary work day, as well as the overtime and complementary hours manifested by the working person, except evidence to the contrary” is presumed. Also that “the employment contract of part -time working people is pressed full time, except proof to the contrary to prove the partial character of the services.”
Concretion of the right to digital disconnection
The legal text also includes some concretion on the right to digital disconnection, already recognized in Spain, but that suffers from little compliance. The bill establishes “the business duty to guarantee the right to disconnection” and explains that “it implies, among others, the absence of any request to carry out a work benefit and the absence of communication of the company or person in whom delegates, as well as third parties in a commercial relationship with the company, with the working person through any device, tool OA through digital means, as well as the right not to be localized outside their work schedule”.
The right to digital disconnection is contemplated as “inalienable”, although it is expected that through collective bargaining it may establish “exceptions” when “justified exceptional circumstances that may constitute a serious risk” for workers or for other people, “or a severe business potential that require the adoption of urgent and immediate measures” concur. ”
