Three months away from elections, the Spanish government wants to make it clear that it is not just standing in until the new government arrives and that unemployment is still a big priority.
Yesterday, Minister of Labor Valeriano Gómez mentioned in an interview that his cabinet is wrapping up panel discussions with employee organizations and labor unions in order to create greater flexibility of temporary work contracts that last for a period of "two or three years."
The ministry's objective is to increase the attractiveness of a form of work contract that has rallied about 9% after an emergency plan was approved in February. The plan included employer match bonuses of up to 100%. Now, the Ministry of labor is putting something new on the table: a proposal that keeps the employee organizations and the labor unions happy. Gómez assured that if there is no agreement by the end of August, the government will push to pass a law.
Entrepreneurs will have the opportunity offer part-time employees a new plan for paid time off. They could earn paid time off for around 10% of the days that they work so long as they provide several days of notice.
This wink to the central labor unions would pass for an improvement to the work day for part-time workers such that methods used to compute pensions would be an issue. The idea is that a worker who is 35 or 40 years old and working part time earns the same amount of benefits for his work as a full-time employee, the minister said.
In Spain's case, the way to achieve parity between full and part-time employees would be to increase the multiplier (a number used to compare part-time employees to full-time workers) from 1.5 to 1.75.