The Govern has demanded the central government to withdraw its draft bill to reduce the working week to 37.5 hours a week (from the current 40). According to the autonomous Executive, it is an “imposition” that does not take into account the particularities of the Balearic labor market.
This has been indicated by the autonomic secretary of Labor, Employment and Social Dialogue, Catalina Cabrer. In declarations offered to the media, she has proposed that the measure be settled in the social dialogue to avoid creating a “tension” that, from her point of view, “would threaten social peace”. “Social peace is the ‘sine qua non’ condition for a territory to be able to develop a project, face the problems it has and its tasks”, he has alleged. Cabrer has highlighted the employment data of the Balearic Islands, which closed 2024 with an average of 570,000 affiliated to the Social Security and less than 30,000 unemployed, something that has justified that it is due to the “effort” of the business fabric, workers and the self-employed. In that sense, he has defended that in the Balearic Islands 20% of the employees are self-employed and workers hired by self-employed. “There are many small and medium enterprises” in the archipelago, he stressed. In addition, he said that in all the sectoral collective agreements signed in the private sector, 40-hour working weeks have been agreed and, at company level, 40 or 39 hours a week are usually agreed on average. Along these lines, he stressed: “The Government has the feeling that the project has not reflected on the territory”.
Lack of workers
Another of the arguments he has put on the table is the lack of workers in the Balearic Islands, given that it has an economic system based on services. “You can not consent to a measure of coffee for all without taking into account the particularities of the Islands,” he insisted. For Cabrer, the central government has “broken” the social dialogue with this initiative and has cited a headline he has read in the press because in Menorca “employers and workers would be confronted by the working day”, so he asked to work “for social peace” and not for “confrontation”. What does the Government propose? That it be done through collective bargaining and sectorially, since there will be sectors in which it will be possible to reduce the working day to 37.5 hours, but has indicated that “the presence” in the services is “important”. On the other hand, Cabrer warned that a reduction in the working day could result in an increase in the cost of services, since companies would have to hire more personnel.
Conflicting opinions
As was to be expected, the issue of reduced working hours has generated debate in recent days. Various voices have been raised since December 20, when Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz agreed with union leaders from CCOO and UGT on a 37.5-hour workweek cap, with no reduction in wages. While Díaz is working on the preparation of the project (this week she has met with the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, to bring positions closer together), the business and trade union world has expressed its opinion on the matter. “Each productive sector will adapt, what must be done is to give quality of life to the workers”, expressed to La Voz de Ibiza the delegate of the UGT in the Balearic Islands, Pedro Campillo Antón, dismissing the criticisms of the Government to the measure. On the other hand, the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) has said that an effective working day of 41.2 hours would be needed to reach the average productivity levels of the European Union.
