The PSOE will propose in its electoral program in view of the July 23 elections to increase maternity and paternity leave from the current 16 weeks to 20, although working part-time in those four new weeks, as well as establish by law in the Statute of Workers that the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI) is at least 60% of the average wage in Spain.
This was announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, during an act of the Socialist Party, in which they reviewed the labor situation in Spain and boasted of policies such as the labor reform or the rise of the SMI by 47%.
Both recalled that currently the SMI has already reached 60% of the average salary, although they defended that “we go from a political commitment” to “that it be a legal mandate” in the Workers’ Statute, as explained by Sánchez himself. For Escrivá, this is related “to the levels of dignity that must be achieved in the labor market.”
In addition, the minister maintained that the measure of equating maternity and paternity leave to 16 weeks with the current Government, which has worked “extraordinarily well”, has been “pioneering”. Therefore, he said that “there is a way” to increase this leave to 20 weeks, although working part-time those four extra weeks.
In terms of pensions, Escrivá and Sánchez announced that the PSOE’s electoral program will include the commitment to make a contribution of 5,000 million euros per year to what is known as the ‘piggy bank’ for pensions, which has already begun to receive funds with the The Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI) was launched this year, based on a surcharge on the contributions of companies and workers.
Escrivá predicted that the ‘piggy bank’ will be endowed with some 120,000 million euros within a decade, although “after that moment they will be disbursed”, since “the system will have to address some tensions”.
With the “work session”, broadcast publicly but without allowing face-to-face access to the press, the Socialists sought to show the Executive’s management, this time in labor matters, and dismantle the “noise” and the “falsehood” of some data used by the opposition.
Sánchez explained that this day, in which he was the conductor of the Escrivá exhibition, seeks to “contrast” the project of the Executive he presides over and “leave behind the noise that fills the political conversation.” Likewise, he advanced that he will also hold a conference this Thursday with the head of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, due to the importance of the primary sector in the Spanish economy.
The socialists also seek, according to Servimedia socialist sources, to show that “they have a team”, compared to a Feijoo who does not offer his project or who accompanies him, and that there is “management” to boast of carried out during this legislature.
In his speech, Escrivá highlighted the high rate of temporary employment in the labor market when they came to the Government, since almost one in three workers had a temporary contract. This caused such an “abrupt mechanism” by which millions of jobs were destroyed in crisis situations, as occurred during the financial crisis.
“This way of working in the labor market gave rise to very little training and human capitalization,” added the minister, who explained that this was due to “the lack of linking workers to companies.” “The challenge we had was to turn around this very complicated situation,” he asserted.
In his opinion, the turning point to change this situation was the pandemic, thanks to the ‘ERTE covid’, with which 3.6 million workers, more than half a million companies and 1.5 million employees were protected. autonomous.
Likewise, Escrivá boasted of the approval of the labor reform that, together with the reduction of temporary employment, has allowed the “reinforcement” of collective bargaining. “We have already seen extraordinary results with the Agreement on Employment and Collective Bargaining between unions and employers that will allow the recovery of the purchasing power of workers after the rise in inflation,” the minister explained, while Sánchez said that the agreement between social agents has been possible thanks to the fact that “there is a government behind it” setting the necessary conditions.
In the same way, Escrivá pointed out that these elements have allowed “to move from precariousness to stability”, to bet more on training and improve productivity to have “better jobs”.
In addition, Escrivá praised the rise of the SMI by 47% and defended that if this indicator is raised “intelligently and gradually” and “looking at the competitiveness situation of our companies at the same time, it ends up generating positive dynamics of economic efficiency”, since that exerts “a certain pressure” on the gain in productivity.
On the other hand, Escrivá indicated that it is possible to continue advancing towards “full employment” and proposed reinforcing the incorporation of young people into the labor market, as well as the elderly, reforming in parallel the public employment services and policies active.
In relation to the self-employed, the minister said that “we have been pioneers” with the level of protection, where there are “gaps” throughout Europe. In this regard, he stated that “it is about the public being behind to give certainty” to all the agents, as was done during the pandemic and has been consolidated later with the reform of the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA).
Finally, both Sánchez and Escrivá criticized the PP’s pension reform approved in 2013 and emphasized that the reform of the current legislature guarantees the purchasing power of pensioners, while improving the Social Security accounts for the collection peaks that are being reached thanks to the improvement in the labor market.
In fact, the minister predicted that in May, based on the information available to him, the Social Security deficit will be below the target set of 0.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and defended that, if there had not been Once the inflationary crisis had occurred, the accounts would already be practically in budgetary balance.
