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With Spain holding the EU Presidency in the first half of 2002, the Spanish employers' confederation CEOE has set out its priorities for the Presidency, which include revitalising the Lisbon strategy, ensuring the success of the euro, making enlargement a means of greater cohesion, reinforcing the external dimension of the Union and contributing to its future. CEOE has also expressed its views on collective bargaining in 2002, following the conclusion in December 2001 of an intersectoral agreement laying down guidelines for bargaining
The Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organisations (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, CEOE) has recently set out its views on the Spanish Presidency of the European Union during the first half of 2002, and on collective bargaining in 2002
Spanish Presidency of the EU
On 21 November 2001, CEOE presented to the government its positions on the Spanish EU Presidency (EU0201232N), in a document entitled'Entrepreneurial priorities for the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU' (Prioridades empresariales ante la presidencia española del Consejo de la UE).
CEOE considers that'Spain must be exigent with the objectives of its Presidency in order to make Europe a space not only of freedom, safety and justice, but also an attractive, open and competitive one'. To achieve this aim and contribute to the integration of Europe, CEOE sets five priorities.
The Lisbon process
CEOE stresses the need to revitalise the main lines of the'Lisbon process'- the strategy agreed at the LisbonEuropean Council in March 2000 (EU0004241F), which set employment targets and seeks to modernise and liberalise the European economy - and shares the priorities of the Spanish government for the European Council to be held Barcelona in March 2001.
According to CEOE,'in order to make Europe the most competitive region in the world from now to 2010, the economic and structural reforms defined in the strategy designed in Lisbon must not be delayed'. In its opinion,'the ambition of the EU must be more demanding than ever in order to allow Europe to adapt to the new world context, so that it can play an active role with regard to globalisation.'
The euro
CEOE considers that the Spanish Presidency must ensure the success of the euro, following the introduction of notes and coins at the beginning of 2002, taking care to ensure'the best conditions to facilitate an easy and trouble-free transition.' The Spanish employers believe that'the euro must become an instrument of prosperity and growth of a European Union based on a solid economic framework in which the public deficits are under control and price stability is ensured'.
Enlargement
The forthcoming enlargement of the EU to the countries of central and eastern Europe, plus Cyprus and Malta, requires respect for the cohesion between the current Member States and their regions, says CEOE. Enlargement must become a means for greater cohesion, so that it leads to a reinforcement of the EU. To achieve this, two political questions must be considered together: accepting the candidate countries in a relatively short period of time, while safeguarding the process of European construction. This involves not only acceptance of the Community's achievements and body of regulation by the candidate countries, but more important, strict respect for them.
External dimension
Another CEOE priority for the Spanish Presidency of the EU is reinforcing the'external dimension' of the Union. CEOE considers that'the EU must aspire to play a decisive role on the international stage by establishing an environment favourable to exchanges and investments.' In this context, it states that'a greater participation of the business world in the various levels of economic dialogue would be desirable'. CEOE also states that'the EU and its Member States must offer the countries of Latin America and of the Mediterranean the necessary assistance to create and apply a reliable and stable legal and administrative framework, which is necessary to facilitate economic development and industrial cooperation with the EU'.
Future of the EU
CEOE wants the Spanish Presidency to make a greater and better contribution to the future of the EU. To achieve this, it believes that a wide-ranging and far-reaching debate must be held on the future of Europe, in which civil society in general, and the social partners in particular, must be suitably represented. In CEOE's opinion, there must be'a structured and transparent debate towards a simpler and less distant Europe that fosters the entrepreneurial spirit and progresses in the process of economic modernisation'.
Collective bargaining
On 20 December 2001, CEOE, the Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (Confederación Española de la Pequeña y Mediana Empresa, CEPYME), the Trade Union Confederation of Workers' Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO) and the General Workers' Confederation (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT) signed an intersectoral'agreement for collective bargaining 2002' (ES0201207F). The deal lays down guidelines and criteria for lower-level bargaining in 2002, including pay increases linked to inflation and productivity gains, and a focus on employment and health and safety
According to CEOE, the objectives for bargaining are now moderate pay growth and fostering employment stability, in order to overcome the current context of economic slowdown. After the signing of the intersectoral agreement, the president of CEOE stated:'it is a landmark that strengthens our autonomous responsibility as social partners and establishes criteria for collective bargaining in 2002, a year marked by great expectations due to the coming into circulation of the euro and great concern about the slowdown of international economic activity'.
In Spain, collective bargaining affects over 1 million companies, which employ over 9 million workers. The main objectives of the intersectoral agreement are to maintain and increase employment, to foster its stability and to help to avoid traumatic workforce adjustments. The key guidelines for lower-level bargaining are as follows:
- the primary reference point for pay bargaining must be the inflation rate forecast by the government;
- pay increases may be higher than the forecast inflation rate, within the limits arising from the increase in productivity, though leaving a margin for employment and productive investment;
- employment stability must be fostered by adopting schemes that avoid the unjustified successive use of temporary contracts;
- improvements in the skills and qualifications of workers must be promoted as an essential factor for their employability and professional development and the competitiveness of companies; and
- equal opportunities between men and women and between employees on contracts of a different duration must be promoted.
To achieve the aims of the agreement, in addition to the criterion of moderate pay growth, the system of recruitment on various types of contract and its correct use must be considered as a whole, in order to achieve internal flexibility. According to CEOE, bargaining at the appropriate levels on these issues must be oriented towards the adaptation of work organisation and forms of recruitment and employment to the production needs of companies. As'human capital' is a fundamental asset of companies, employment stability must be taken into account to ensure competitiveness and security for workers, particularly in situations of economic slowdown. Current active employment policies seek to facilitate stable employment contracts and CEOE believes, given this aim of stability, that collective bargaining is a suitable instrument for establishing commitments to convert temporary contracts into permanent ones. The aim of greater stability in recruitment is seen as no obstacle to maintaining a framework of temporary recruitment that allows companies to respond flexibly to the changing needs of production and provision of services.
Another aim of the intersectoral agreement is to improve the qualifications and skills of workers, seen as a decisive factor for the development of an economy based on knowledge and on the information society. The current European employment strategy is also in favour of life-long learning. In this context, CEOE considers continuing training to be a useful instrument, because it favours the capacity of adaptation of workers and companies, helps to maintain and improve employment and responds to the needs of both. Furthermore, the identification of the professional qualities required in the production system improves the transparency of the labour market and facilitates the identification of training needs. To this end, the establishment of a national qualifications system will also help to meet training requirements.
The employers feel that another important aspect of bargaining is to foster equal opportunities and help to eliminate gender discrimination in employment and occupation. They point out that Spain still has low activity rates and a high level of unemployment among women. There are also unjustified pay differentials between men and women, and the prevailing model of the family is still based on women taking on the majority of family responsibilities, which involves additional difficulties for their career development. Though no explicit gender differentiation tends to appear in collective agreements, the reality shows that there are unjustified imbalances in their application. Some of these imbalances are found in the persistent pay differentials between men and women shown in the statistics.
Commentary
For the forthcoming period, the CEOE supports the current model of the EU and considers that Spain's new national agreement on moderate pay increases favours an early end to the economic slowdown. However, by contrast, the trade unions state that the construction of Europe must accompany the euro with more social and labour rights. Furthermore, they believe that the high rate of temporary employment must be corrected by applying and improving the existing regulations. (Fausto Miguélez, CIREM Foundation)