The Minister of Employment of the Canary Islands Government, Jéssica de León (PP), has rejected this Tuesday the reduction of working hours approved by the Council of Ministers for not having been agreed by unions and employers in the field of collective bargaining, and not including compensation for the islands.
In statements to journalists, the Minister said she is in favor of reducing the working day to 37.5 hours, something she believes is essential for reconciliation with family life, but disagrees with how the Ministry of Labor has proceeded, which, in addition, has kept the autonomous communities out of the debate.
"The Ministry of Labor has not made a single consultation to the autonomous communities," lamented De León, who stressed that in the case of the Canary Islands, with a productive fabric in which 86% of companies are SMEs, the reduction of working hours requires compensatory measures that have not been foreseen.
The reduction of working hours must be agreed between unions and employers and include compensation for Canarian SMEs, insisted the Minister, who also reproached the Government for the role it has played because she understands that it does not correspond to it.
She cited that in the conflict between the tourism employers and the unions in Santa Cruz de Tenerife over the negotiation of the labor agreement, the Canarian Executive has intervened but the parties are the ones who sit down to negotiate and will do so on May 20.
Regarding the announcement by Sindicalistas de Base that it will initiate mobilizations at the doors of "all those hotels that have decided to sanction the workers who supported the general strike of the hotel industry on April 17 and 18," she said she was unaware of this situation and hopes that it will be addressed and resolved in the field of negotiation.
