When the Spanish government presented a draft of collective bargaining reforms to firms and unions, various lobbies and individuals rejected it and labor relations experts expressed doubts about its viability.
The experts question the content, saying that it hardly clarifies labor relations and is not a tool for galvanizing the labor market. Words used to describe the reform: confusion, interventionism, ambiguity and superficiality.
For Manuel Pimentel, former minister of labor, the government presented a text that is "not much better than the formalization of an agreement contracted with Brussels. From a legal perspective, it lacks content because really, it doesn?t change anything."
A former leader of labor relations for the Aznar government believes that paying attention to how the markets respond is important.
More pointed thoughts come from Salvador del Ray, partner and president at the Instituto Internacional Cuatrecasas. "My general view," affirms Del Rey, "is that the reform is insufficient in absolute terms because we need a total overhaul of the collective bargaining rules. And it´s also lacking in relative terms considering that it doesn´t take into account the structural or economic status of the labor market."
