Despite failures to engage in successful dialogues about labor reforms and collective bargaining, social agents keep debating other issues such as hiring models. This month, unions, company leaders and the government are meeting to talk about changes to part-time labor and new hiring practices that will factor in to developing the youngest sectors of Spain?s workforce.
Nonetheless, labor reform conversations will turn around on June 27, the next time these groups will meet. An employee organization will present proposals for reforming the entire Spanish hiring system and simplifying it through a single contract that provisions 20 days of severance for employees who have reached at least one year´s worth of employment.
The secretary general of the CEOE, José María Lacasa, confirmed this yesterday after presenting the latest edition of the "Índice Libertad Económica 2010" report at the headquarters of elEconomista.
"We have not put it on the table yet, but we are going to implement it," said Lacasa. A single employment contract for 20 days severance pay is a "type of general contract that allows for the flexibility that companies need and the security that workers ask for." While the CEOE´s second-in-command did not provide details on all the contract?s points, she explained that it is not directed at a concrete group of people, but that it would reduce all types of contracts that currently do.
The proposal is similar to what Joan Rosell, president of the CEOE, wanted to include in the labor reforms. At that time, the unions did not see the initiative clearly and censured it radically. In fact, this was the reason that dialogues broke off.
Edited in English by Brandon Dyches and Jose L. De Haro (joseluisdeharo@eleconomista.es)
