The keys to the new labor reform

The Collective negotiation, the hiring and the employment adjustment mechanisms to avoid layoffs are the three areas on which the agreement reached by the Spanish Government with the social agents on the labour reform.

Collective negotiation

– The company agreement will have application priority over the higher scope, except in salary matters.

– A collective agreement will remain in force while its renewal is negotiated, although after one year the parties must submit to mediation procedures or, if there is a prior agreement, arbitration.

hiring

– By default, the employment contract is presumed concluded for an indefinite period of time.

– The contract for work and service disappears.

– The temporary contract may only be concluded due to production circumstances or by substitution of a worker with the right to reserve the job.

– The contract due to production circumstances will not exceed 6 months, extendable to 1 year by sectoral collective agreement. It may be held when there is an “occasional and unpredictable increase” in activity or when there are “oscillations that, even in the case of normal company activity, generate a temporary imbalance”, including annual vacations.

It may also be used to deal with occasional, foreseeable situations of reduced and delimited duration, for a maximum of 90 non-continuous days a year and never within the framework of contracts, subcontracts or administrative concessions that constitute the ordinary activity of the company.

– Fraudulent temporary workers will be converted into indefinite ones, as well as those who accumulate 18 months of work within a period of 24 months, in the same or a different job with the same company or group of companies, through two or more contracts due to circumstances of the production, directly or through its provision by temporary employment agencies.

– Collective agreements may establish temporary reduction plans, as well as set maximum temporary rates in the workforce and the consequences of non-compliance.

– The training contract will not be less than 6 months nor more than one year.

– The discontinuous fixed contract is established for work of a seasonal nature or linked to seasonal productive activities, with certain execution periods. They may be carried out within the framework of contracts or by temporary employment agencies (ETT). Seniority will take into account the entire duration of the employment relationship and not the time of services actually provided.

Temporary employment regulation files (ERTE)

– ERTEs are maintained for economic, technical, organizational and production (ETOP) reasons, as well as those of force majeure (due to administrative decisions, including those for the protection of public health), with voluntary exemptions of 20% and 90%. of social contributions, respectively.

– RED Mechanism: companies will be able to launch these ERTEs, after activation by the Council of Ministers, in the event of a crisis for a maximum of one year and with exemptions of 20 to 60%, or in the event of sectoral restructuring for a year that can be extended. to two and with an exoneration of 20%. The exemptions will only be for companies that develop training actions.

The RED benefit will be 70% of the regulatory base throughout the period, from which the part of the social contribution on account of the worker will be deducted, and will not consume unemployment.

The Government will create a RED fund to meet the financing needs of the mechanism, which will be endowed via the general State budget, with European financing and by the excess of income from social contributions for unemployment.

Termination of contract

– Once the maximum duration of the temporary contract has expired, if there is no complaint and the labor provision continues, the contract will be considered tacitly extended for an indefinite period of time.

Outsourcing

– The sectoral collective agreement applicable to contractors and subcontractors will be that of the activity carried out, unless they have their own agreement, which will no longer have priority in salary matters.

– The company that contracts or subcontracts with others must verify that they are up to date with their salary and Social Security obligations and will be jointly and severally liable for it. This will not apply to housing construction or repair activities.