Today is the meeting of the so-called “social dialogue”, the “social monologue” according to CEOE and CEPYME, the employers’ associations of large and small companies that have declined to present an alternative proposal to the decision already taken by the Government and trade unions (CCOO and UGT) to reduce the working week from 40 to 37.5 hours without a reduction in pay. Thus measure, according to their calculations, will mean a direct cost of 11,000 million for companies, with the loss of more than 5.5 million hours and the equivalent of a 6% wage increase that will deepen the already serious problem of productivity in the Spanish economy, in which SMEs today offer a productivity 3.3% lower than a year ago. “It is essential to promote a framework conducive to the development of activity and productivity gains in the company before developing this measure,” explained Cepyme, which estimates that the measure will affect 75% of employees with some type of collective agreement, some 8.8 million workers.
The hotel and catering and retail sectors, in global terms, would be the sectors most affected by the cut in the legal working day. Specifically, it would affect 1.3 million workers in bars and 1.9 million in shops, both sectors with a large presence of self-employed workers and SMEs.
“SMEs cannot put up with a generalised reduction in working hours”, denounced the president of Cepyme, Gerardo Cuerva, last week, after the ultimatum given by the Ministry of Labour to bring a proposal to the Social Dialogue table on this issue, which meets today.
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