First steps towards consensus on new labour reform

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Immediately after Spain's general election on 12 March 2000, in which the ruling conservative People's Party obtained an absolute majority, the Prime Minister held a first round of consultations with the social partners, seeking consensus on a new round of labour reform.

The conservative People's Party (Partido Popular, PP), led by Prime Minister José María Aznar, won an absolute parliamentary majority in the general election held on 12 March 2000, having previously formed a minority government. "The social dialogue will be one of the government's priorities in the next legislature," Mr Aznar stated in his speech on election night. He announced his intention to start a round of consultations with the social partners to reach a consensus on a new "labour reform". He met with the general secretaries of the Trade Union Confederation of Workers' Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO) and the General Workers' Confederation (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT) and the chair of the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organisations (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, CEOE) even before forming a new government.

The trade unions and employers' associations were very pleased with this attitude of promoting dialogue and consensus on industrial relations, although their viewpoints obviously differ. CC.OO and UGT do not wish the People's Party to apply the force of its absolute majority to impose a labour reform; while CEOE has a special interest in achieving more flexible working hours and wages and for this needs a certain consensus with the trade unions. For different reasons, both the unions and employers seem to be willing to start negotiations in order to reach a consensus on a labour reform in 2001. A similar method will be followed to that used in the last reform, the intersectoral agreements of 1997 (ES9706211F). Thus, in the next few months a joint assessment of the labour situation will be made, and following that the topics to be negotiated and the negotiation procedure will be defined. If the process concludes in consensus, the government will merely regulate what the social partners have agreed.

Nevertheless, it seems that the process will be complex and difficult. For a start, the parties' positions are very distant with regard to the central issue of controlling the level of temporary recruitment. Despite the 1997 reform, which sought to promote stable employment, it is an uncontestable fact that the rate of temporary employment has hardly fallen at all (ES9907238F), but the solutions put forward by the social partners differ greatly. Some trade unionists are in favour of penalising the use of temporary recruitment financially, whereas the employers' associations call for dismissal to be made cheaper. However, this may not be the key to the negotiation of the next labour reform. CEOE has already announced that it will not put forward cheaper dismissal as a priority if the unions agree to negotiate greater labour flexibility in companies, with greater geographical and functional mobility and variable hours of work and wages. It seems that the unions are willing to enter into such negotiations in exchange for shorter working hours and more employment. Agreement will certainly not be easy to reach in this area, nor apparently in the area of social security contributions and unemployment benefit, questions that will be dealt with partly in this forum and partly by the political group examining the renewal of the 1995 "Toledo Pact" on social security (ES9910158F).