Employers criticise working time reductions in regional pacts

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At the March 1999 annual general meeting of the Spanish employers' association, CEOE, the organisation's president directly criticised the agreements on a 35-hour working week signed in several regions, and accused them of breaking the rules of the market.

The Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organisations (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, CEOE) held its annual general meeting in Madrid on 16 March 1999. At the meeting, José María Cuevas, the CEOE president, made a direct criticism of the many 35-hour week agreements between regional governments and trade unions, which subsidise shorter working hours in the public and private sectors by means of public funds (ES9902297F). Prominent examples are the agreements for employment signed in Galicia (ES9810184F), Catalonia (ES9805154F), Castilla-León, Navarre and Andalucia (ES9809282N).

Mr Cuevas claimed that these agreements break the unity of the market, since, without a corresponding reduction in wage costs, reductions in working hours will make it harder for institutions and companies in these regions to compete. He stated that the agreements contravene the principle of tripartite bargaining, because they are often signed only by the regional government and the trade unions, leaving out the employers' associations. Mr Cuevas also claimed that the subsidies to the companies that choose this system will generate public deficit and probably higher taxes, neither of which favour growth, and he therefore urges employers to reject them.

This is the first time that Spain's main employers' association has come out against this practice with such vehemence. It might be taken to indicate that employers would be willing to negotiate an intersectoral agreement on this subject, but in fact CEOE has rejected trade union proposals for such an agreement several times over recent months. Instead, CEOE has proposed negotiations on working time, meaning its role in work organisation - shift patterns, daily, weekly and annual flexibility and so on - without ruling out a reduction in working hours when increases in productivity allow it. However, a wholesale negotiation on the 35-hour week, especially if backed by law, does not for the time being form part of its plans.