Citroën Hispania increases annual working hours

Download article in original language : ES9803144NES.DOC

A new collective agreement signed in March 1998 at Citroën Hispania's in Spain establishes a voluntary increase of 74 working hours a year. The agreement was signed exclusively by the company union, which holds the majority on the workers' committee. The other unions (CC.OO, UGT and CIGA) rejected it.

A new collective agreement at Citroën Hispania- the Spanish operation of the French-owned motor manufacturer - signed in March 1998, contains the company management's proposal on working hours. Unlike previous agreements, which laid down the number of working hours, the new one simply refers to current legislation in force. In practice this involves an increase in annual working hours from the 1,752 hours laid down in the previous agreement to the legal maximum of 1,826 hours. It will thus be possible to introduce nine voluntary working Saturdays per worker per year, as proposed by the company.

Agreements on Saturday working - and in general, on more flexible working hours - are beginning to be quite common in large companies in Spain. However, the Citroën agreement includes a major difference: Saturdays worked are not compensated, as they normally are, by time off in lieu. In this case, greater flexibility in working hours is accompanied by an effective increase in the number of hours worked. Furthermore, this increase is even more significant if it is borne in mind that the company also plans to use overtime - up to the annual legal maximum of 80 hours - for special production schedules.

The CC.OO, UGT and CIGA trade unions initially rejected the proposal by the company, on the grounds that it ran contrary to the widespread tendency towards reducing working hours. Nor did they believe that the prevailing figure of 1,752 working hours per year was low. In fact, it was slightly higher than the average number of working hours laid down in company agreements in the industry - 1,745 in 1997. Nevertheless, the unions were willing to negotiate an agreement on more flexible working hours in exchange for more secure jobs. At Citroën's Vigo factory there are around 2,500 workers with temporary contracts out of a total of 9,000, and most of these workers are in production departments. To reduce this high rate of temporary employment, the unions proposed that nine working Saturdays should be compensated by days off and that the company should make a commitment to convert 500 temporary contracts into permanent ones.

However, the employer's proposal was accepted by the company union, which holds the majority of seats on the workers' committee. With this backing, Citroën management decided not to enter into negotiations with the other unions and to sign the agreement directly.

The company's CC.OO, UGT and CIGA organisations have called several demonstrations in protest, and have obtained the support of a large proportion of the workforce. Their action has also been supported by the metalworking federations of these union confederations, which believe that the Citroën agreement is a setback in negotiating working hours and fear that it will set a precedent for other companies in the sector.