When we look around, what we see in the business world, in general, is people working, employers and employees striving to move their companies forward to earn a living. This is the norm in our country, where SMEs overwhelmingly predominate and generate most of the economic activity and employment. How many entrepreneurs express that, at times, they feel they actually work for their employees. What is a freelancer? It is nothing more than a worker who carries out an economic activity on their own account, even if they use the paid service of other people.
One way or another, what the vast majority of us do is work to support our families and lead a decent life. But, as the world changes and with it the economy and production processes, it is necessary to update labor relations between employers and employees, without forgetting that on our agenda is to eliminate the most harmful aspects of the labor reform introduced by the Popular Party in 2012. But as important as it is, another core aspect of our legislative agenda is much more so: a new Statute of Workers for the 21st century.
The Statute of Workers must stand as a new charter of rights for this time, reconciling economic growth with the dignification of working conditions. While the extreme right and the ultra-right turn up the decibels so that our work in favor of the modernization of the country is not heard, the Government of the PSOE and Unidas Podemos will continue, nevertheless, promoting new country agreements, in Parliament between political forces and social between employers and unions, for a new Statute of Workers with a vocation for durability and permanence.
The new Statute must be in accordance with the technological, social and ecological challenges of this century, now exacerbated by the devastating economic and social crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the response of the European Union through the reconstruction funds has buried austerity policies and has repositioned citizens at the center of solutions. Now it is time to work together and united for public health and economic reactivation, guaranteeing the full recovery of labor rights through collective bargaining and social dialogue.
Let the decibels not distract us. Our great objective is to reduce high unemployment rates, improve the effectiveness of active employment policies, guarantee the right to continuous training throughout life, take advantage of the ecological transition and the potential of Spain in the green economy sector to promote employability, continue with the shock plan for youth employment, deepen equal treatment and opportunities between women and men in employment and occupation, strengthen support for social economy organizations and companies, or verify that a job is decent only if it is healthy.
Paradoxically, this terrible crisis offers us a hand to address the structural problems of our labor market, such as long-term unemployment, high turnover, excess temporality, the duality between temporary and permanent workers, inequality between men and women and the wage gap. We are facing an unbeatable opportunity to modernize the country and eradicate the inequalities and precariousness of employment caused by a labor reform, that of M. Rajoy, which brought uncertainty, instability and labor poverty. The time has come to say goodbye to the labor model of the right and the artificial division between the increasingly diverse world of work.
Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, senator of the PSOE for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.