Comisiones Obreras Lanzarote (CCOO) has denounced that an informative campaign has been presented at the confederal level "to counteract the manipulated and pejorative use" that employers' organizations make of the term absenteeism and have stated that they have been "used to criminalize fully justified work absences fully justified and protected by law."
According to data mentioned in the Randstad Research Report on Labor Absenteeism in Spain, we find that "93% of absences respond to the exercise of rights such as medical leave, vacations, or reconciliation," according to data from the first quarter of 2025.
Thus, they have defended that these data dismantle the "distorted narrative" of the employers:
- 50.9% of absences are due to illness, accident, or temporary disability (IT).
- 35% correspond to vacations and paid leave. ∙
- 8% are permits for maternity, paternity, or family care (7,480 people in the Canary Islands).
- Only 0.7% of cases lack a justified cause (and are non-existent among salaried employees).
"Talking about absenteeism is a discursive fraud. Companies do not cover 70% of short leaves or assume costs for permits, but they do stigmatize these rights," argued Alejandro Domínguez Delgado, general secretary of the Insular Union of CCOO of Lanzarote.
The myth of "spending on absenteeism" is another business hypocrisy, since according to the 2024 Randstad Report, unjustified absenteeism in Spain did not exceed 3%, and its real cost falls on workers and Social Security, as we all generally know, that is:
- Companies that apply collective agreements that do not regulate situations of improvements in IT or that apply the TRET, do not pay the first 3 days of leave (assumed by the worker).
- 80% of IT leaves are covered with internal surpluses or work overload, not with hiring.
- Paid licenses (such as those for gender violence) are rarely economically compensated by employers.
"If the CEOE wants to reduce absences, let it demand more investment in public health," CCOO of the Canary Islands emphasizes, and we from this territory echo it.
60% of ITs could be shortened with early diagnoses and agile treatments, according to the WHO. However, employers have been cutting back on risk prevention for years and outsourcing occupational health to mutual societies, which divert cases to the public system.
In short, faced with this campaign to discredit the labor rights of workers, CCOO Lanzarote has mentioned that "they are rights, not privileges" and have demanded to defend public health to expedite medical discharges and recognize pathologies derived from work as occupational.
"Working conditions are not a gift. They are conquered rights. And we will not remain silent in the face of such an outrage of the rights of workers," he concluded.
