Telefónica is proposing a workforce reduction plan (ERE) that will affect a maximum of 5,100 workers, 136 in the Canary Islands, in the three companies that the company has in Spain, according to union sources after the first meeting to establish the negotiation tables.
This Monday saw the completion of the establishment of the negotiation tables for the three legal entities of Telefónica in Spain -Telefónica Móviles, Telefónica Soluciones and Telefónica España- where some 16,000 people work.
The company believes that there are 5,124 surplus jobs, which is the maximum number of workers that could be affected by the ERE.
Telefónica is proposing this job cut for objective reasons of a productive, organizational and technical nature.
Union sources estimate that the redundancies will be "inevitably lower", since, in their opinion, the adjustment of these surplus positions can be made through various measures such as change of activity, internalizations or retraining, without necessarily departures.
UGT believes that the volume of redundancies proposed by the company "has not yet been made public".
Of the 5,124 jobs, 4,085 correspond to Telefónica España, 81 to Soluciones and 958 to the mobile division, the same sources added.
By autonomous communities, Madrid has the most positions in the ERE, with 1,580 between the three companies (881 in Telefónica España, 624 in Telefónica Móviles and 75 in Soluciones).
Among the most affected are also Catalonia, with 777 jobs in total; Andalusia, with 691; Comunidad Valenciana, with 343; Galicia, with 339; Castilla y León with 286; Basque Country, with 255, and Asturias, with 140, according to union sources.
Canary Islands has 136 surplus jobs; Aragon 128; Castilla La Mancha 119; Murcia 90; Balearic Islands 77; Extremadura 76; Cantabria 42; Navarra 36 and La Rioja 9.
The ERE, which will run until 2026, is planned for people born in 1968 and earlier years (aged 55 or over), with a minimum of 15 years of service, according to the same sources.
The next meeting between unions and the company will be on December 11.
Key points of the negotiation
These negotiations will run in parallel to those of the collective agreement for employees of the three companies and, in fact, the unions have already warned that they will not accept an agreement without the other.
UGT has reiterated its position that "there will be no agreement on the ERE if there is no agreement on the agreement that shields guarantees and stability".
A position shared by CCOO, which points out that it will seek "positive results" in all negotiating commissions in a coordinated manner.
The last ERE proposed by Telefónica took place in 2011, when it laid off more than 6,000 employees, a measure that led to a change in legislation.
Since then, Telefónica has opted to implement employee departures through the so-called PSI, the acronym for Individual Suspension Plan, whereby the employee remains linked to the company until his or her actual retirement, even if he or she is suspended from employment, and maintains social benefits, such as medical insurance and the pension plan.
