Social partners assess NAP

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In April 2001, the Spanish government presented its 2001 National Action Plan (NAP) for employment, which involves spending over ESP 2 billion on measure to combat unemployment. Trade unions have criticised the fact that the Plan was not negotiated with the social partners, though they were informed and consulted on it. The social partners agree on the priority problem: unstable employment. However, they disagree on how to resolve it.

Spain's National Action Plan () for employment for 2001, in response to the EU Employment Guidelines, was presented in April 2001, while the previous 2000 Plan was evaluated. In this evaluation, the social partners highlighted several positive aspects, such as the policy on equal opportunities, the identification of unstable employment as a priority problem and the reduction in long-term unemployment. However, the government and social partners still disagree on the procedures for informing and consulting the social partners over the NAP and the lack of negotiations in this area, and on the strategies for solving the main problems of the labour market.

Assessment of the 2000 NAP

The Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organisations (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, CEOE) and the Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Confederación Española de la Pequeña y Mediana Empresa, CEPYME) take a positive view of the 2000 NAP's measures related to equal opportunities, such as: the promotion of nursery provision; the creation of support services for families and workers with adult dependants; and vocational training programmes and programmes of guidance for lone parents. Nevertheless, they consider that more specific measures are needed in this area.

Overall, the employers also take a generally positive view of the NAP insofar as it gives greater coherence and coordination to employment policies - although the Plan introduces few innovations, but rather sets out measures that had already been developed in different areas of the administration. The trade unions take a similar view on this point.

However, the trade unions are generally far more critical of both the content of the 2000 NAP and the procedure through which it was drawn up. Indeed, the unions feel that NAPs merely restate the measures already being carried out each year by the various government bodies as part of their employment policy. The Trade Union Confederation of Workers' Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO) and the General Workers' Confederation (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT) have issued a joint statement on the 2000 NAP, asserting that:

• the procedure for assessing the implementation of the 1999 NAP was incorrect, with the social partners not involved in monitoring and evaluation;
• there was no negotiation with the social partners, which were merely informed and consulted on the content of the NAP and modifications to it; and
• the NAP failed to confront the serious problems of the Spanish labour market and the effort to improve employment opportunities for unemployed people was insufficient.

However, the unions feel that some important actions were carried out under the 2000 NAP:

• the rate of unemployment was reduced, especially among women and young people, as a result of active policies aimed at unemployed people;
• the Plan involved measures aimed at job creation which were particularly successful in increasing the participation and employment rates of women, though this process began in the 1980s and had already led to a greater presence of women in the labour market;
• long-term unemployment was reduced, though the problem still persists and 50% of unemployed people have been without work for over a year;
• the attempts to reduce the high rate of temporary recruitment have led to a growth in stable employment in the past three years, though the rate of temporary employment is the highest in Europe (one out of three workers has a temporary contract); and
• the social protection of unemployed people has improved, but the unions still feel that it is insufficient.

Drawing up the 2001 NAP

According to the Ministry of Labour, the procedures for drawing up the 2001 NAP (the fourth) followed the same lines as its predecessor in terms of the participation of the social partners, the autonomous communities, local authorities and other social and labour institutions and associations. This participation occurred in two phases: a phase of informing and consulting the social partners; and a phase of gathering their contributions.

However, according to the trade unions and employers' organisations, only information meetings were held over the 2001 NAP. The government sent the social partners the EU Employment Guidelines, as approved by the EU Council of Ministers, while the National Institute of Employment (Instituto Nacional de Empleo, INEM) sent dossiers to the social partners inviting them to propose measures to achieve the objectives being pursued. Therefore, there was no negotiation as such. At best, the government informed and consulted the social partners and gathered their opinions and proposals, as it has done for several years.

General lines of the NAP

For 2001, the Ministry of Labour revised the 2000 NAP in order to adapt it to the 2001 EU Employment Guidelines and to take account of the EU Council of Ministers' recommendations on Spain's employment policies, based on an examination of the policies implemented in 1999 and 2000 (EU0010276F). The 2001 NAP thus reflects the Council's recommendations, paying special attention to the following aims:

• continuing the modernisation of the public employment services in order to increase their efficiency, paying special attention to preventive action;
• making progress in equal opportunities for men and women, bringing the level of female employment nearer to the EU average;
• applying a coherent strategy for life-long education and training, and paying special attention to reducing school failure;
• developing new forms of work organisation in collaboration with the social partners; and
• examining the incentives/disincentives emerging from the tax and benefit systems with a view to increasing participation in the labour market and stable employment.

The government also wished to continue with other measures that had been implemented in previous NAPs, such as the preventive active labour market policies that were initiated in 1998, paying special attention to the groups targeted at the European Council summit meeting on employment held in Luxembourg in November 1997 (EU9711168F). It wishes to modernise the public employment services and to improve all levels of the vocational training system. The government will seek to develop the "information society" through initiatives such as INFO XXI The information society for everyone- which has been recently been approved for 2001-3 - incorporating the objectives of the EU's "eEurope" initiative (EU0004241F), and the National Plan for Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation, 2000-3.

Another measure introduced in 2000 and continued in 2001 is aimed at improving the statistical monitoring of the actions under the NAP through indicators drawn up according to a methodology proposed by the EU. A major feature of this development has been the introduction of the Public Employment Service Information System (Sistema de Información del Servicio Público de Empleo, SISPE) by INEM with the collaboration of the autonomous communities. This measure is aimed at coordinating the employment services of the regional governments with the national services.

The government has made a commitment to the EU to spend ESP 2.1 billion to fight unemployment in 2001. The goal is to create more than 1.5 million jobs during the present parliamentary term. To achieve this, 1.5 million training places are planned, mostly for women. Overall, the NAPs' measures have so far been introduced in a favourable economic framework, with relatively sustained economic growth and continuous generation of employment since 1995.

Position of employers' organisations

CEOE and CEPYME, as noted above, considered that the 2000 NAP failed to meet a series of challenges. They therefore proposed the following measures for inclusion in the 2001 NAP:

• promoting part-time employment. This involves revising the current labour regulations, which are complex and make it difficult for employers to use this type of recruitment. Part-time work is underdeveloped in Spain because the rules are not adapted to the reality of the labour market (ES0106245F). This issue was included in the labour market reform decreed unilaterally by the government in March 2001 (ES0103237F);
• developing collective bargaining. This relates to continuing efforts to renew the contents of collective agreements, especially with regard to aspects such as job classification, pay systems and working time. However, the employers state that incentives to reduce working hours have had little success in collective agreements and feel that any legal imposition of shorter working time will be ineffective in creating jobs;
• improving the coordination of public employment services. The employers' organisations feel that there should be better coordination between the public employment services that have been or are being transferred to the regional governments. They claim that the mechanisms foreseen in the NAP are insufficient for this purpose, because the lack of cooperation may prevent integrated and effective action in an increasingly decentralised scenario. One of the greatest obstacles caused by the lack of coordination is an absence of geographical mobility. Furthermore, the lack of coordination between the autonomous communities and the central services often leads to duplicated action;
• evaluating and monitoring employment policies. The employers criticise the NAP for the lack of specific indicators and mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the Plan. They therefore propose quantitative and qualitative evaluation mechanisms;
• training. The employers' organisations place special emphasis on the need for training in foreign languages and information technology;
• social protection systems. The employers have for some time been calling for a reduction in employers' social security contributions, because they increase labour costs. In fact, they argue that this is one of the guidelines that was laid down in the 1999 NAP; and
• linking active and passive policies. The NAP is seen to lack specific links between active and passive policies in the unemployment protection system, apart from an "active integration income" initiative.

Position of trade unions

CC.OO and UGT maintain a critical position on the NAP due to their experience with the previous Plans (ES9907239F). For the 2001 NAP, the measures suggested by the unions were similar to those proposed the previous year:

• improving and increasing the possibilities for finding employment and reducing unemployment among the most heavily affected groups (women, young people and long-term unemployed people). To achieve these objectives, the unions feel that active policies should be more intensive and specialised. More complete and integrated programmes could be established that are adapted to the needs and characteristics of unemployed people, and more emphasis should be placed on actions such as those that combine training and employment;
• establishing job creation mechanisms, rather than just improving the training and guidance of unemployed people. Economic policy is seen as not being sufficient to attain full employment. Community and "proximity" service programmes should be drawn up and promoted in collaboration with the autonomous communities and local authorities, and work organisation should be modernised by reorganising and reducing working time;
• solving the problem of unstable employment, especially by controlling the abuse of successive ("chain") fixed-term contracts and the rotation of temporary contracts. The trade unions (CC.OO and UGT) and the employers' associations (CEOE and CEPYME) have recently made a new attempt to renew the April 1997 intersectoral agreement on employment stability (ES9706211F). However, this attempt ended in failure. The immediate response of the government to this failure of concertation was to take unilaterally measures that, in the opinion of the unions, benefit the employers (ES0103237F);
• modifying the 1980 Basic Law on Employment;
• modifying unemployment protection;
• guaranteeing equal opportunities for men and women, and improving the new Law on Reconciling Work with Family and Social Life (ES9911165F), especially given the absence of stable employment; and
• improving the integration into employment of certain groups who find it difficult to enter the labour market, such as disabled people and immigrants.

Commentary

From the assessments and proposals of the social partners, it can be concluded that unemployment and precarious employment are major problems, but that the social partners and government do not agree on how to solve them. The employers call for greater flexibility in part-time contracts, whereas the trade unions claim that successive temporary contracts are one of the main problems.

The social partners also agree that there is a need for greater coordination of employment policy between the three levels: the central administration, the autonomous communities and the local authorities. INEM is already working in this direction to improve employment services. The social partners criticise the lack of coordination and the overlapping of actions related to the NAP.

The Ministry of Labour, the trade unions and the employers' organisations also agree that the NAP has not fostered social dialogue and social concertation. This existed previously. However, it has contributed to a greater participation and involvement of the autonomous communities and local authorities. That is to say, it has helped to reinforce the dialogue at the lower levels, and to decentralise participation and involvement in employment issues.

The main criticism is of the level and nature of the social partners' participation in drawing up the NAP. The unions in particular feel that they have been informed and consulted, but that there has been no process of negotiation. They claim that NAPs are not negotiated because this might compromise or question the main lines of the government's economic policy. This is the main point of conflict with the unions.

The social partners are also in agreement on praising some of the points of the NAP, such as those relating to equal opportunities for men and women, the increase in the participation and employment rates of women, the attempts to reduce unstable employment, and the reduction in long-term employment.

The differences of opinion relate to the strategies proposed for employment. The greatest differences are between the government and the trade unions. In the past year the disagreement seems to have increased, especially when the social partners failed to reach an agreement and a labour market reform was introduced unilaterally by the government. (Antonio Martín Artiles, QUIT-UAB)