Díaz Wants Seasonal Activity To Be Covered With A Fixed-Discontinuous Contract
One of the points of the proposal of the Ministry of Labor to modernize the labor market – currently under negotiation – that generates the most conflict with the CEOE is the package of measures that seeks to reduce the high levels of temporary employment that Spain suffers, close to 25%, the highest in the EU.
Ministry sources point out to eE that in order to smooth out the opposition of the CEOE and Cepyme, a flexibility mechanism will be introduced specially designed for certain sectors , such as agriculture and construction, which have radically opposed the philosophy maintained by the Government to reduce the levels of temporality.
Agriculture and construction
However, the social agents do not know the details of this mechanism that, supposedly, the Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey, should have delivered to the negotiating table at the October 4 meeting. But the representatives of CEOE and Cepyme and CCOO and UGT will have to wait for a next appointment. What the sources of Labor do confirm to this newspaper is that a special contractual modality will not be created for these or other sectors.
Both Asaja, the employers’ association of farmers and ranchers, and the construction CNC, have argued that the peculiarities of their activities make it difficult to hire permanent workers as the only option. The field has many processes, linked above all to harvesting, limited to specific periods and in construction it is common to link workers to the period in which a work is going to be carried out.
Asaja commented to this newspaper that they need a solution to the peculiarities of their activity , and they do not enter into whether it goes through an ad hoc contract or a flexibility mechanism, as long as it responds to their needs.
More complex is the case of construction, a sector that already has a specific contract – fixed work – agreed upon through negotiation between the employers and the unions of the sector established with a regulatory entity in article 24 of the VI State Construction Agreement .
But the decision not to allow a specific temporary contract for some activity has led Work to include in its proposal the repeal of the construction contract.
The negotiation draft abolishes said contract by repealing the third additional provision of Law 32/2006. Said precept establishes that “with the aim of improving the quality of employment of the workers who attend construction works and, thereby, improving their occupational health and safety, state-level collective bargaining in the construction sector may adapt the contractual modality of the specific work or service contract provided in general by means of formulas that guarantee greater stability in the employment of workers, in terms similar to those currently regulated in said area of negotiation “.
Indefinitely
The essence of Yolanda Díaz’s reform to reduce temporary employment is clear at the start of future article 15 of the ET: “the employment contract is presumed to be concluded for an indefinite period of time.” And then it warns that “a fixed-term employment contract may only be entered into for reasons of a productive and organizational nature.”
But to avoid confusion, it clarifies that in no case will the performance of work of a “seasonal nature linked to campaigns” be understood as a productive cause, which, the draft of Work explains, must be hired through the indefinite modalities specifically provided for such an end. From the Ministry they clarify that it refers to fixed-discontinuous contracts. However, both in the field and in construction they insist that this type of contract does not meet the needs of their activity.
