Spanish Government gets labour reform through Congress

Spanish Government gets labour reform through Congress
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By h.b. - Sep 9, 2010 - 12:37 PM
The abstention of the PNV cleared the way for the Government in the voting

Minister for Employment, Celestino Corbacho, in Congress during the debate today - EFE

The Spanish Congress has today, Thursday, approved the Government’s labour reform package, albeit with some changes.

The new text incorporates most of the amendments incorporated in the Senate, nearly all of them from the Socialist party, which needed the support of other opposition groups to get the legislation passed. Some 70 amendments were added to keep them happy. As a result the PNV abstained in the voting, thus allowing the legislation to be passed.

Despite the vote to pass the legislation, the session saw criticism of the Government from all sides.

The agreement between the PSOE and the PNV Basque Nationalist Party on what economic reasons could justify redundancies, the final document offers 20 days pay per year work as compensation which can be applied of there are ‘current or forecast losses’, or the ‘persistent reduction of income levels’.

A worker can also lose his or her job when absenteeism reaches 20% of days in a two month consecutive period, or 25% over four separate months in the same year, provided in both cases that the average absenteeism is not over 2.5%.

Workers who have been in the same company for three years on temporary contracts will now have to be given a fixed contract. An amendment from the PNV which considered that should only apply when the person has actually carried out the same job has not been included in the legislation.

The concept of ‘partial unemployment’ as suggested by the BNG, Galician Nationalists was accepted. This means that benefits are calculated using hours and not days worked.

The main Socialist victory is the right to remove unemployment benefit after 30 days if the recipient does not agree to go on a training course. The previous limit was 100 days.

Minister for Tax and the Economy, Elena Salgado, claimed the reforms would allow Spain to climb positions in the world competiveness rankings. Her comment came the day after data showed that Spain had fallen nine places in the World Economic Forum index to position number 42. Top of the list are Swizerland, Sweden and Singapore.

PP spokesman, José Ignacio Echániz, said that the Government continued ‘completely alone’ in the legislation without the support of either the political parties or the unions. ‘It is the first labour reform in history where a Government has not been supported by anyone’, he said.

Meanwhile the Minister for Unemployment, Celestino Corbacho, has said that one in three people who were collecting the 426 € extraordinary monthly payment, given to the unemployed whose regular entitlement had expired, has found work.

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