Bargaining on occupational classifications and functional mobility

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Recent years have seen changes in the system of occupational classification laid down in Spanish collective agreements, with a tendency towards greater flexibility, functional mobility and multi-skilling. Drawing on recent research, this article outlines the situation in 2004.

A number of recent pieces of research examine the issue of how collective agreements regulate functional mobility and multi-skilling at work - notably published by the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO) and the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organisations (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, CEOE). Below we examine this topic, based on these studies (see below for details)

Changing occupational classification

A labour market reform introduced in 1994 sought to promote flexible work organisation by offering the possibility of laying down adapted occupational classification systems in collective agreements - these had previously been essentially governed by law (ES9706110F). More recently, the intersectoral agreements reached by the central social partners to provide a framework for lower-level collective bargaining in 2002-4 (ES0302204F and ES0201207F) state that functional mobility is a mechanism that enables 'internal flexibility and adaptation by companies', and call for 'horizontal' job classification structures based on 'occupational groups'. Using occupational groups (eg production, administration or sales) to classify jobs defines a wider occupational area that a worker can cover (ie taking a broader and more multi-skilled concept of job classification) than the system based on narrower 'vertical' occupational categories, identified with a specific post. Groups are also more flexible than categories. In general, the assignation of a category of post to an occupational group involves total functional mobility within it. The worker may carry out tasks of any other category in the same group without this involving a change in pay or category. However, there are exceptions (the company agreement at Marbella Club Hotel, fro example) that provide for specific bonuses in such cases.

Three types of changes are currently observed in the systems of occupational classification laid down by agreements at company and sector level:

• the conversion of old vertical categories into new groups and narrower categories through 'tables of equivalent categories' (tablas de equivalencia de categorías);

• maintenance of the old statutory occupational categories based on the old Franco era Labour Ordinances (Ordenanzas Laborales) (ES9706110F) through collective agreements negotiated freely by the parties. This involves a model based on occupational categories and takes greater account of seniority in the same sector or company. In these cases, pay is used as an instrument for making occupational structures more flexible; and

• the design of occupational structures based on wide occupational groups, with fewer intermediate categories and more horizontal ones. The use of these structures is made more flexible through wage supplements that remunerate functional mobility - discussed in the next section

Remunerating multi-skilling

A number of pay models have emerged that compensate workers for giving the employer the ability to use its workforce more flexibly. There main such models for rewarding functional mobility are as follows.

Availability bonuses

By the use of 'availability bonuses' (pluses de disponibilidad), workers are compensated for doing tasks that do not correspond to their category (an example is the company collective agreement at Fertiberia). Sometimes, not all workers receive bonuses, For example, at Bazán, the concepts of 'ordinary' and 'special' availability are defined, which means that some categories of workers, while being versatile, are not subject to bonuses because the mobility does not require high levels of training, knowledge or skill (even when workers perform several jobs in the same category, no compensation is applicable). Agreements such as that at Ingenieria Urbana establish that compensation will be paid if tasks of a higher category are performed.

Multi-skilling bonuses

In contrast to the relevant law (the Workers' Statute), which provides very imprecise definitions, collective bargaining has developed a degree of limitation of the scope of multi-skilling by restricting it to certain categories, or allowing functional mobility only between categories of the same occupational group. However, the right to compensation is rarely recognised. Where it is, there are two main types:

• 'multi-competence bonuses' (pluses de policompetencia), which reward the use of several skills in the same job; and

• multi-skilling bonuses (pluses de polivalencia) or bonuses for new functions, which reward working in several jobs.

Covering absentees

Some agreements, such as that at Fertiberia, include a system of specific payments associated with filling in for absent workers in order to avoid falls in production. These bonuses do not form a permanent part of the wage packet. There are three systems of covering for absentees:

• covering absent production staff with 'support and flexibility groups' (grupos de apoyo y flexibilidad). The workers involved may change shift (the 'support' element), may receive greater training to replace qualified staff in their absence (the 'flexibility' element), and may fill in for one or two jobs in addition to their own. Workers may join these groups for a period, during which they receive a bonus;

• covering absent workers in different services, with differentiated bonuses. This may involve workers who know and fill in for all the jobs in a section or service and have a higher category, workers who fill in for two jobs in their area of specialism; and workers who cover absentees in a job in the same area of specialism; and

• covering administrative jobs with 'administration flexibility systems' (sistemas de flexibilidad en administración), whereby workers fill in for absentees in the same or a higher category. The workers involved are nominated by management, and an agreement between the worker and the company establishes that the worker will perform the tasks of another job in exchange for a bonus.

Opinions of the social partners

The CEOE employers' confederation is that the establishment of occupational classifications in collective agreements, according to the criteria of Article 22 of the Workers Statute, is taking place very slowly. This is leading to rigidity. Too many employees are classified exclusively in occupational categories or simultaneously in groups and categories (a transitional system that is found in 46% of collective agreements, applying to 43% of the workers covered by such agreements).

According to CEOE's review of collective bargaining in 2002 (Balance de la Encuesta de CEOE sobre Negociación Colectiva 2002, Estructura y contenido de los convenios colectivos en España) (ES0310108F), functional mobility is remunerated expressly in 16% of the company agreements studied (affecting 32% of the workers covered by such agreement), in 11% of all sectoral agreements (affecting 13% of the workers covered), and in 24% of the national sectoral agreements (affecting 8% of the workers covered).

CEOE would like to see a greater development of structures based exclusively on occupational groups - which in 2002 it estimated had been introduced in 11% of all collective agreements, affecting a third of the workers covered by them, and in 19% of the company agreements - though it praises the efforts that have been made in this direction. However, a negative tendency that it mentions is the continued use (in 32% of the agreements examined by CEOE, affecting two out of 10 of the workers covered), of the old Labour Ordinances based on vertical occupational categories, despite their abolition, though it also praises the decrease in. and updating of. these categories.

According to María Teresa Alameda (in La negociación colectiva en España: una visión cualitativa, R Escudero (ed), CC.OO, 2004), since 1994 there has been a flexibilisation in the systems of occupational classification. The wide definition of occupational groups and the malleability of equivalent categories have given companies a greater margin for adapting the workforce to their needs. The introduction of variable pay is leading to an individualised system of recognition of a worker's skills.

Commentary

There has been a convergence of views between the social partners in favour of promoting occupational structures based on occupational groups, though the trade unions tend to favour combining them with a substructure of categories and the employers favour pure occupational groups. The unions stress the need for greater recognition of functional mobility in pay and the establishment of certain limits on the almost total flexibility demanded by the employers.

The consequence of this tendency is that in practice individualised variable pay systems are being developed to stimulate productivity, and these may be somewhat arbitrary and hard to justify. Above all, because productivity can only be estimated and attributed in organisational terms (which must take into account the technical system, the infrastructures, the work organisation, teamwork etc), it is difficult to estimate the productivity of individuals objectively and in isolation from their technical and organisational context. Furthermore, the development of systems of work that require multi-skilling is leading to the 'normalisation' of functional mobility, so it is either not recognised (ie it is not defined and not remunerated), or it is recognised as an aspect of individual wage bargaining. (Daniel Albarracín, CIREM Foundation)