He assures that they will demand until the end that it be included in the government agreement and calls on the socialists to assume this commitment
MADRID, 19 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Sumar’s spokesperson, Ernest Urtasun, has revealed that the negotiations with the PSOE regarding a future government agreement are running aground regarding the reduction of working hours, a key point for their space that they are going to demand “until the final”.
Specifically, Sumar’s electoral program was committed to establishing a maximum working day of 37.5 hours per week in 2024 and progressively reducing it until it was set at 32 hours, with social dialogue and without a reduction in salary.
“The conversations are progressing well. It is true that there are also some issues on which we are stuck (…) In particular there is one issue, which is fundamental for Sumar, and that is the issue of reducing the working day,” he revealed. in statements to ‘La Sexta’, collected by Europa Press.
In that sense, he has explained that on this issue “to date” they do not have an agreement with the PSOE and calls on the socialists to assume that the reduction of working hours is within that pact.
Furthermore, this Thursday the second vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has assured that maintaining the bank tax is another of the points that are being negotiated between PSOE and Sumar to reach an agreement to form a Government and that her proposal party is to “stay.”
Precisely this measure was one of the main axes of Sumar’s campaign for the general elections of 23J and Díaz has indicated on several occasions that it is one of the demands to achieve an “ambitious” social agenda for the next legislature.
In the meeting between Díaz and the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on October 4, within the framework of the round of parliamentary contacts of the PSOE for the investiture, the representative of the Sumar negotiating team for the programmatic agreement of investiture and Secretary of State, Nacho Álvarez, claimed that a pact should include the approval of a new “21st century” Labor Statute. And one of its central points is that it included this reduction in the working week.
Urtasun has explained that at this time “it is not acceptable” for Spain to maintain the same 40-hour working day and that his aspiration is to reduce it, given that this is the trend in the European Union.
Its application, according to the Sumar spokesperson, will improve the productivity of the economy, reduce unemployment and allow workers to better reconcile their work and family life.
“The countries that have a better balance are more productive and that is in all the studies that the International Labor Organization has done, for example. Also because those countries that have reduced the working day have had an unemployment rate lower than the European average. as is the French case and therefore for us it is an essential, structural issue of this legislature”, he reasoned.
Therefore, he has promised that Sumar will insist a lot on this issue, since they defend their electoral commitments, and the reduction of working hours “is one of the great social advances that must occur in this legislature.”
