On November 2nd, the government finally announced the start of negotiations for labor reform, the so-called "labor reform for the 21st century." It is confirmed that the government will not repeal the two labor reforms (2010, from the Zapatero government, and 2012, from the Rajoy government) that have plunged the Spanish state and the Canary Islands into the greatest job insecurity in memory. There are the data from the latest EPA, where the figures relating to job destruction, temporary employment, or the immense wage gap, as well as the galloping growth of the so-called "working poor," demonstrate that the bleeding cannot be stopped solely with a handful of band-aids.
There are issues that, from the outset, the government has stated will be outside of the negotiation. It should be remembered that we come from a scenario in which the necessary administrative authorization for the presentation of EREs was eliminated, which has led to mass layoffs, and that the amount of compensation carried out by the PP was also reduced for those companies that were protected by economic forecasts. In addition, the processing salaries were dispensed with, which are those wages that the company was obliged to pay to the worker who had denounced their dismissal if a judge decreed their reinstatement. The compensation for unfair dismissal, in addition, was reduced from 45 days per year to 33 days per year. Well, this will be another of the "immovable" issues of the future reform of the self-proclaimed most progressive Government in history.
That is, if we take into account all the issues mentioned above, with the new labor reform, job destruction will continue to find in our legal system the same lack of resistance as until now.
The Rajoy government, in 2012, declared that its objective was "to grow and create employment." A term was even coined that was repeated ad nauseam. The so-called flexicurity: supposedly, reducing the obstacles to dismissal incentivized, at the same time, hiring, when in reality, all those measures were aimed, not at
the creation of jobs, but at the cheaper elimination of those with better working conditions to replace them, in turn, with more precarious jobs that have given rise to millions of working poor.
The progress of what we already know about the negotiation of this Government's labor reform indicates that, in a profound sense, it will continue to share the theses of the PP government, which imposed its labor reform, in order to impede union freedom, union negotiating capacity, and the key issue of employers, facilitate and cheapen dismissal, eliminating the contractual and regulated nature of the labor relationship and the salary, that is, destroying the strength of labor and turning the employee into objects to be used and thrown away when it suits the company.
We believe that the complete repeal of the labor reform is essential and suffers an unjustified delay.
Manuel Plasencia
Member of the Canal Gestión company committee representing the General Confederation of Labor (CGT).
