Díaz insta a los sindicatos a movilizarse por la jornada laboral
The Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, urged the unions to mobilize to defend the 37 and a half hour workweek: «This is how rights are surpassed in our country. They are surpassed with rights, with hope, defeated with love.»
«If we mobilize, we will win this battle,» she said on Saturday, at an event in Viladecans (Barcelona), focused on reducing the workday, where the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, the spokesperson for the communities and the Minister of Culture also participated.
Díaz predicted an intense debate on the reduction of the workday because, in her words, it has many opponents and she asked the PP if their 137 deputies in Congress will vote against the measure as they did with the labor reform, something that, for the Minister, would mean «hurting» the workers and turning their back on the modernization of Spain.
Díaz stated that now «it is time for democracy to reach companies» because, in her words, productivity has increased much more than wages in the last three decades, and she believes that the reduction of the workday should serve to distribute this productivity.
«If there are obscene profit margins, it may have been time for these profit margins, in terms of productivity, to be distributed in favor of the working people in our country. We are not asking for big things. We are asking for a small distribution and equality in labor relations,» she said.
She also called for more effective digital control to prevent overtime and ensure the right to disconnect outside of working hours.
With this, she stated that the reduction of the workday bears the mark of addition because, in her opinion, if her training was not in the executive, now the government will not defend the measure.
Against «neoliberal ideology»
For Díaz, the strategy in the workplace that the coalition government has implemented is aimed at «deconstructing neoliberal ideology» and the strategy of devaluing salaries that, in her opinion, have been followed for 45 years of democracy and especially in the last PP government under the presidency of Mariano Rajoy.
The minister mentioned examples of the increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) that obtained, in her words, the greatest economic growth and efficiency; the labor reform, which shows that what the PP and PSOE theorized in previous reforms was «not true»; and the protection of jobs through mechanisms like ERTE.
Díaz added that now, the reduction of the workday is not just an economic and social variable because «it has an unusual force» that, she says, is the hope it can convey to people who can look to the future and see that they can work a little less, literally.
Urtasun: against IRPF on SMI
In his speech, Minister Urtasun reiterated the rejection of the addition and the communes that, if imposed on the SMI, will be taxed with the Personal Income Tax (IRPF) on individuals who earn that salary and criticized that, in parallel, energy «does not pay hard.»
Urtasun emphasized that, from the addition, they want to open the fiscal debate long overdue to «see who pays what,» but they will not accept, literally, that fiscal justice and tax revenues of the next budget year will burden the minimum wage.
By reducing work hours, he warned that the employer «threatens» by setting the rules.
Aina Vidal and Candela López
In turn, López’s candle asked the rest of the parties, emphasizing together, that they «should not bend to the employer’s threat» because, according to them, defending Catalonia and the Catalans means defending the best living and working conditions and pointed out that the reduction of the workday is, literally, an extension of workers’ freedom.
After that, Aina Vidal argued that the reduction of the workday is a right that workers have earned and, in her opinion, also makes companies more sustainable and criticized the opposition of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) and Foment: «I am cynical, sexist, racist, and authoritarian.»
FUENTE
