Martín Artiles, Antonio

The participation rates of women are rising, but are still some way behind those of men. The problems of reconciling work and family life hinder the integration of women into the labour market. The UGT has criticised the transposition of the European Directive through the Law on reconciliation of work with family life. The law interprets that the problems of work-life balance are individual rather than collective. The trade union view is that they should be considered as a collective problem because they involve a loss of equal rights, lower the birth rate and threaten the economic future of the country.

The CEOE has proposed a new type of contract of fixed duration. The Ministry of Labour responded with the idea of penalising temporary employment by increasing employers' unemployment contributions for temporary contracts and reducing them for permanent contracts.

In March 2005, the Spanish social partners reached an intersectoral agreement providing guidelines for lower-level collective bargaining in 2005 , as they had done in the three previous years. The agreement contains two main new features: it includes the possibility of being extended to cover 2006; and it lays down measures to control unjustified absence from work. The agreement reflects the concern of the social partners about improving competitiveness and the quality of employment, and provides for continuing pay moderation.

In December 2004, the Spanish government and social partners agreed to increase the national minimum wage by 4.5% in 2005, and to apply a wage guarantee clause whereby, if inflation exceeds the increase in the minimum wage, the latter will be adjusted upwards. However, the CEOE employers' confederation later withdrew its support, arguing that the wage guarantee clause is inflationary. The situation remained unresolved at the end of January 2005.

The results of the most recent elections of workers' representatives in Spain, published in late 2004, confirm the dominance of the CC.OO and UGT trade union confederations. It is their electoral strength that is regarded as the source of the legitimacy and representativeness of Spanish trade unions, rather than their membership, which is low but stable, at around 17% of the wage-earning population.

In November 2004, Spanish trade unions criticised the policy of workforce reduction and relocation conducted by the Dutch multinational Philips at its plants in Barcelona. The unions have called for the intervention of the regional government in order to avoid the closure of three plants, asked the city council not to change the permitted use of the sites and demanded employment guarantees.

In April 2004, three major large motor manufacturers, Renault, Nissan and Volkswagen, have recently presented redundancy procedures in their Spanish operations.

In 2004, EU employment policy appears to have contributed to increasing women's participation in the Spanish labour market, while EU equal opportunities policy is also having an effect on women's employment. However, some of the new employment for women is temporary, precarious and in low-pay sectors. These are among the findings of recent research and analysis in Spain.

A ground-breaking collective agreement was signed in May 2004 at the SEAT motor manufacturing plant in Martorell, Spain, SEAT . The main innovative features are a five-year duration, the introduction of autonomous work groups, the use of 'hours pools' to adapt working time to changes in demand, and new family-friendly leave arrangements.

In April 2004, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled - in a case brought by the CC.OO trade union confederation - that restrictions placed on the granting of work permits to immigrants in 2002 were invalid. The ruling should improve the employment situation of a large number of illegal foreign workers.