Government and construction sector clash over bargaining reforms

Spain’s new Popular Party government has changed collective bargaining rules to give company agreements priority over multi-employer agreements. Days before the new legislation came into force, social partners in the construction sector signed a national collective agreement (NCA) intended to take precedence over company-level agreements. The NCA was, however, not recorded until after the reforms were enacted and the government is now challenging it in the courts.

New collective bargaining rules

On 10 February 2012, Spain’s new government, led by the Popular Party, enacted labour legislation reforms that modified collective bargaining rules (ES1202021I). The new law decentralised collective bargaining to a greater degree than the previous reforms brought in by the Socialist Party in 2011 (ES1107011I).

The new law, like the previous one, gives greater priority to company-level agreements over multi-employer and provincial-level agreements in areas such as basic pay and pay supplements, overtime, working time and shift work distribution, occupational categories, contracts and work-life balance measures. The main change from previous legislation gives company agreements priority over multi-employer agreements, even if social partners decide to establish an alternative structure of collective bargaining in their sector.

Construction sector agrees alternative structure

On 20 January 2012, 20 days before the labour legislation reform was enacted, the General Confederation of Construction (CNC), the Federation of Construction, Wood and Related Activities of the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (FECOMA-CCOO) and the Federation of Metal, Construction and Related Activities of the General Workers’ Union (MCA-UGT) together signed the Fifth National Collective Agreement of the construction sector affecting 1.3 million workers. It will be in force from 2012 to 2016.

The new agreement takes priority over company agreements in areas such as pay structure and pay increases, occupational categories and productivity, clearly going against the new collective bargaining rules.

However, although the agreement was signed before the new legislation was enacted, it was not recorded by the labour authority, the Ministry of Employment, until 23 February 2012 – 11 days after the new legislation came into force.

On 31 May 2012, the Ministry of Employment challenged the collective agreement in court because it did not observe the new collective bargaining rules.

Ministry of Employment’s legal action

The Ministry of Employment states in a note (in Spanish) on its website that because the collective agreement was recorded after the new collective bargaining rules had come into force, it is obliged to observe the latter. It also argued that the freedom of the bargaining parties ‘is not absolute’ and that they must comply with the criteria established by the law.

UGT, nonetheless, argued that collective bargaining should be accepted and it objected to the juridical uncertainty that the ministry had introduced in the sector.

According to the Ministry of Employment, this is not the first time a collective agreement has been challenged in the courts. In recent years, legal action has been taken against 11 collective agreements for a number of reasons, such as the lack of representativeness of the bargaining parties or the failure to abide by Spanish labour legislation.

Commentary

The conflict between the government and the construction industry reveals that the new collective bargaining rules are not accepted in all sectors. In addition, it shows that legal reforms on collective bargaining adopted without the agreement of the social partners are most likely to fail.

Pablo Sanz de Miguel, CIREM Foundation