The stability of majorities in Congress is inflicting the Government to undergo in lots of parliamentary votes, and to undergo a couple of defeat. This is the destiny that now looms over the past a part of the pension reform if the positions introduced by the left-wing nationalist companions and in addition by the PP don’t change. The former have been concerned in a conflict this week with the unions that endorse the settlement. This was already made clear on Monday by ERC deputy Jordi Salvador: “We see the intention of depriving the legislature of the right to discuss. Can we not have an opinion on the labour and pension model?” he mentioned. And representatives of Bildu and the BNG expressed themselves in comparable phrases, whose deputy Néstor Rego criticised the truth that “what is agreed in social dialogue is being sanctified”. The debate they’re elevating goes past pensions. It is deeper: ought to political teams merely settle for the agreements reached by unions and employers? How a lot room is there to switch these agreements within the legislative debate?
The arguments of the nationalist left discovered a response from union leaders this week. “Be careful not to dismiss the importance of what we have presented today,” mentioned Unai Sordo, the overall secretary of CC OO, after staging the settlement on confinement with the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. Pepe Álvarez, his counterpart in UGT, went into the guts of the matter: “Spain cannot be held hostage by the political differences that exist in our country. Parliament cannot sequester workers’ rights, so that norms that have been agreed upon by social agents do not see the light of day.”
Toni Ferrer has been on each side of this debate. He was secretary of commerce union motion for UGT from 1995 to 2016 and senator for the PSOE from 2019 to 2023. “This is an old problem, which has happened more than once,” he remembers, earlier than mentioning that “here two powers appear, which are precisely followed in the Constitution.” He refers to article 6 (“political parties express political pluralism, contribute to the formation and manifestation of the popular will and are a fundamental instrument for political participation”) and article 7 (“workers’ unions and business associations contribute to the defense and promotion of the economic and social interests that are their own”). He believes that they’re “two different legitimacies, not opposed ones.”
This is an opinion much like that of Joan Coscubiela, a lawyer and professor of Labour Law, normal secretary of CC OO in Catalonia from 1995 to 2008 and deputy of Iniciativa per Catalunya in Congress and the Parliament from 2011 to 2017. He believes that “from a strictly legal perspective there is no doubt that the final word is up to the Cortes”. But, on the identical time, he qualifies: “We must take into account when something reaches Parliament as a result of social agreement, based on the legitimacy of article 7. It is not reasonable that, at a time when it is so difficult to reach agreements, they are rejected in a global way. The pact of those who know the system best and who are the main financiers (workers and employers, who pay the Social Security contributions) must be valued. Does this mean that nothing can be touched? That would be denying the role of Congress and the Senate, a mistake. That is what the amendments are for.”
“There is a very limited concept of politics, very aristocratic, within the parliamentary sphere. Social agreement is an expression of the social and legal State, and it deepens the democratic quality of the country,” provides Coscubiela. At the identical time, he believes that politics “must make the effort to make the two legitimacies compatible, that of social dialogue and that of legislation.” In this function, based mostly on his expertise in a number of negotiations, Ferrer underlines the function of the Executive: “The Government has to do a job of communication with the groups, telling them what is being discussed and where the agreement will go, so as not to agree on something that will not come out later.” This is exactly what the nationalist events often complain about, saying that they be taught in regards to the information from the press.
Sources from CC OO insist on the road proposed by Ferrer: “We have a lot of experience in negotiating and we know that we must move forward on two tracks, that we and the employers' associations are spoken to and that this is accompanied by a space of permanent contrast with the political groups. The Government must handle these keys. We can try to convince the groups and accompany them, but we cannot do their work. [al Gobierno]. We do not want to be used as a battering ram against anyone.” At the identical time, they categorical their “concern” about “a process of permanent tacticalism, that important votes are used for unrelated issues, such as what Junts has done with rents.” In different phrases, “it is normal for them to play their role as an expression of citizenship, but they should be rigorous in overturning agreements that have been worked on a lot, with many balances.”
Fernando Luján, now within the function that Ferrer occupied for years in UGT and the union's foremost negotiator, believes that Spain “should move towards a collective bargaining law that protects the result of social dialogue, which would be the most consistent and coherent with the position that the Constitution recognises for social interlocutors.” He provides that this step would carry Spanish rules consistent with European rules, “in which it is easier for agreements between trade unions and employers' organisations to be passed directly into directives.”
The union leaders additionally demand that the political teams take a place on the discount of working hours, to seek out out if the measure could be accepted in Congress. The key’s in Junts, which doesn’t reveal its place and which, because it introduced The Worldmet with CEOE this week. The employers' affiliation requested the Catalan group to reject the measure.
Amendment to social dialogue
Ferrer believes that, past the content material, the rejection of pension reform by BNG and Bildu has “obvious reasons”. “They are not in favour because their space for union intervention does not coincide with that of the signatories of the agreement; this does not apply to ERC (Salvador was general secretary of UGT in Tarragona), but for BNG and Bildu it is very clear”, he explains, referring to the affinity of those events with different nationalist unions. He additionally factors to the PP: “When they have governed they have ignored social dialogue. And now, in the opposition, it would be expected that if CEOE signs an agreement they would sign it, but they are in the non-permanent”.
Mon Fernández, a BNG deputy within the Galician Parliament and former chief of the Confederación Intersindical Galega (CIG), says that he “has a great deal of mistrust in the social dialogue table”. He describes the very fact itself as “an ideological mantra”, “thinking that businessmen and unions sitting at the table and holding hands are going to reach agreements just because, as if the conflict did not exist”. He says that they don’t attend these tables as a result of they aren’t invited and, on the identical time, as a result of their technique is one other, certainly one of “greater confrontation”. “We are a tougher nut to crack”, he factors out. He believes that what’s mentioned at these tables ought to be mentioned within the Economic and Social Council, the place they’re represented. However, he believes that it’s a consultative physique “with the function of advising” and believes that “popular sovereignty resides in parliaments; we must be very exquisite with this”. 31% of Galician union delegates are from CIG, adopted by 26% from UGT and 25% from CC OO.
“It is clear that the commitment of CC OO and UGT in their trade unionism, of concertation and agreement, is different from that represented by ELA and LAB in Euskal Herria, which is more confrontational,” says Sabino Cuadra, a member of Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak (LAB, Abertzale Workers’ Commissions) and a deputy for Amaiur from 2011 to 2015 in Congress. “If the Government reaches agreements knowing in advance that they clash with the programmes of other parties, it is irresponsible.” The nationalist unions account for greater than 60% of the delegates in Euskadi.
In CC OO they talk about these approaches: “The parliamentary groups have the right to play their role. Another thing is that they accuse social dialogue of lacking representativeness, when it is what it is. No one is excluded. [sindicatos] Nationalists renounce the framework of social dialogue, demonize it, disqualify it every now and then.” They describe these criticisms as “frivolous.”
Together, CC OO and UGT are by far crucial unions in Spain. According to a report ready by the central union headed by Sordo, CC OO has 104,000 delegates in Spain, 35% of the overall, intently adopted by UGT, with 32% and 95,000. These unions, which even have two million members, account for 65% of the union delegates. Then, far behind, are USO (4%), CSIF (3.7%) or ELA (3.1%), amongst others.
https://elpais.com/economia/2024-09-21/choque-de-legitimidad-los-sindicatos-reclaman-respeto-a-sus-acuerdos-y-parte-del-legislativo-se-revuelve.html