The CEOE employers’ association has once again attacked the reduction in working hours proposed by the PSOE and Sumar in the Government agreement on the next legislature. This morning President Antonio Garamendi said that this measure is “populist” and that it goes “against companies.” In his speech at the CEDE executives’ congress, which is being held today in Granada, Garamendi has called for better “public management” to “not hinder the growth” of the business fabric.
The employers consider that the current legal framework covers the needs of companies through the mechanism of collective bargaining. “Agreements between unions and employers lead to social peace and in fact, there are already many collective agreements that contemplate a working day of less than 37.5 hours per week,” said Garamendi, who recalled that an agreement was recently signed that with this measure it would be worthless.
In another intervention, the Catalan employers’ association Foment del Treball has also criticized the measure proposed by both political parties. “It is a lack of respect against the Spanish business community, against the workers and against social dialogue,” lamented President Josep Sánchez-Llibre, who doubts that the measure will finally be approved. Furthermore, the employers consider that the agreement “attacks legal security” and launches “games of artifice.” Gerardo Cuerva, president of the Cepyme employers’ association, has spoken along the same lines, calling the proposal “populist and short-termist.”
During the day, the growing impact of geopolitics on the Spanish economy due to the wars in Ukraine and Israel was also put on the table. In this sense, the president of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce, José Luis Bonet, has warned about the effects of interest rate increases and inflation on the Spanish business fabric. Bonet has put the focus on industrial companies, whose suffering, he said, “should not be hidden because of the boom in the tourism sector.”
Before an audience of 2,000 people, Garamendi and Bonet highlighted the need to increase support for the industry since it is capable of creating stable and well-paid employment, unlike the tourism sector.
