Yesterday, Valencia added its third bank holiday Monday in a row in the pilot test that it is developing on the 4-day working day. On this Monday about 80% of the shops in the center remained closed, according to data from the Confederation of Commerce of Alicante, Castellón and Valencia (Confecomerç CV), which extended this percentage to the rest of the city, which yesterday reduced its levels of traffic considerably. Boys and girls without school, shops and businesses closed drew a new Monday that lengthened the weekend in the capital.
Yesterday was the penultimate Monday, the next one remains to conclude a pilot program that, from Confecomerç CV, they observe critically. Its president, Rafael Torres, assures that the proposal of the Valencia City Council “is not a pilot” and argues it, explaining that “in a 4-day working week, not everything is closed and the city continues to function, not like now. If what you are looking for is to know if, even if people work less, they can produce the same thing in less time and with what efficiency, there are other ways to do itâ€, Torres replies.
The representative of the Valencian merchants explains that billing will drop a lot this month for commercial establishments – “the most affected by the fall in margins”, he adds -, since they have only been open for 20 days this month. That is why Torres calls for a “deep debate” on the rationalization of hours, “calmly, to establish whether it is possible to open earlier or close earlier, so that we can also reconcile,” he highlights.
Meanwhile, he believes that the proposal launched by Mayor Joan Ribó is “electoralist” and recalls that these measures must be agreed within the framework of the Social Dialogue. The Valencia Chamber of Commerce also appeals to this, which points out that “the reduction of weekly working hours has high costs”, for which it believes that it is a decision that “has to be discussed between business and union organizations â€.
The Valencian workers and workers whose job is not in Valencia – some 100,000 people – lived another Monday yesterday; the rest faced a long bridge where they could have chosen between resting, sightseeing or other activities. The Valencia City Council will ask about how they are spending that free time from May 10, when Las Naves, the municipal center that coordinates the pilot program, will start 2,100 surveys at street level to ask residents.
The surveys will be carried out in all the city’s neighborhoods so that the sample is representative, sources from the pilot program explain. They will ask the people of Valencia if they took the opportunity on this holiday Monday to read, study, go to the movies or watch more Netflix movies, among others. Also on health issues, such as stress levels and always with a gender perspective to see if the measure affects men and women differently so that “the measure does not make them more slaves, but more free”, they clarify from the innovation center.
A multidisciplinary team is working on the study made up of technicians from Las Naves, the Valencia Statistics Office and the Smart City Office, since the pilot will draw on hundreds of data collected throughout Valencia. In mid-May, other in-depth interviews are also scheduled to be carried out with “key agents” -the environmentalist and climate change specialist Andreu Escrivà is one of those mentioned-, professionals linked to the environment, business or labor law, among others, that they know how to elucidate what other obstacles can be found in the 4-day journey to develop.
