In the agreement for the reform of pensions last July, the Government included a section pursued by employers and signed by CC OO and UGT: to encourage Mutual Societies to manage common work leaves of traumatic origin with the aim of "avoiding the unnecessary prolongation of the processes." That is, encourage workers to return to work even when they are not well.
As if this were not enough, last week the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz (PSOE), while participating in an event organized by Nueva Economía Fórum, has exposed the intention of the Executive to carry out a Reform of Temporary Disability (sick leave), so that these are more flexible in some of its assumptions, and that they allow to join the work activity even being sick. As Minister Saiz explained, this reform will be carried out from "voluntariness and the guarantee of health and safety", declaring that there will be cases in which some people on leave can return to work, giving as an example: "A person who has cancer is recovering and wants, voluntarily, to work part-time or a few hours a day, and medicine and current treatments allow it." The minister insists that flexible leave adapts to the "new reality", and by new reality she refers to "medical treatments" and "technology".
This new proposal is born with a clear objective: that Social Security and the Mutuals pay less benefits. It seems to us an absolute nonsense because it directly attacks the health of the working people. The progressive government has to change its mercantilist mentality on health issues, it is essential to put the health of the workers at the center, take care of them and protect them from a working life of continuous exploitation, precariousness and stress.
Let us remember that medical leaves are issued by a doctor, that is, a trained person, with studies in medicine and sufficient experience to determine that a person cannot perform their work and discern the longevity of the process. Let us not forget that the reason for the sick leave is to guarantee the recovery of people in a situation of illness. The idea of "flexibilizing" sick leaves, what it would do is endanger the recovery of the workers who are on leave, and of course, put on a tray to the employers the use of this reform so that these people continue working under an alleged change or adaptation of the job, something that from experience we know very few times is carried out.
This new "flexible" occurrence of the progressive Government, which we hope will not go beyond the bravado exposed by the minister at a breakfast with businessmen. If the Government is really concerned about the increase in the economic cost of sick leaves, what it should do is be more vigilant with companies that systematically fail to comply with the LPRL (Law on Prevention of Occupational Risks) that causes risk to the health of workers, and on the other hand, carry out policies that allow an improvement in the health of workers and a real conciliation of work and family/personal life, the reduction of working hours substantially while maintaining the same salary, something that would undoubtedly lower, and much, the levels of stress and anxiety among other pathologies, which generates in people. From our point of view these are the non-harmful ways for the working class, instead of going back to work while sick and with the mutuals urging.
