The Government approves that regional agreements prevail over state agreements, as requested by the PNV
The Government approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers a decree law so that regional collective agreements prevail over those at the state level. That is, in the event that for the same sector there is an agreement for the entire country and another for a specific community, the second will have priority. This was announced by the PNV, promoter of the initiative, through a statement released this Tuesday to the media.
The prevalence of sectoral agreements over state agreements fwas part of the investiture agreement signed between the PSOE and the PNV to elect Sánchez as president. The Executive already tried to carry out this measure, which was included in the same decree as the unemployment benefit reform, at the end of last year. Podemos’s refusal to accept the validation of the subsidy regulations put an end to the initiative, which returned to the Council of Ministers this Tuesday.
Questioned about this issue during the press conference after the meeting, the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, pointed out that the prevalence of regional agreements over state ones was already present in Spanish legislation for several years. Furthermore, she added that This change respects the “spirit” of the labor reform. “The regional agreement will only be applied as long as its formulations are more favorable for the worker,” says the vice president.
The statistics on collective agreements prepared every month by the Ministry of Labor reflected that last year, 907 sectoral agreements were registered with economic effects in 2023. These agreements covered 10.1 million workers, of which 2.5 million (one in four) were under the umbrella of regional agreements or inter-autonomous. In addition, another 3.7 million labor relations were subject to national sectoral agreements and 3.9 million to provincial agreements.
Rejection of CEOE and unions
The measure is not liked by employers or unions, who have regretted on several occasions that it has not been subject to social dialogue. When the Government tried to approve the change in the prevalence of agreements last December, the CEOE employers’ association responded with a statement in which accused the Executive of “lack of loyalty and trust”. For employers, this measure represents an amendment to the labor reform, “attacks market unity at the national level” and represents “a deterioration of social cohesion and Spanish competitiveness.”
The unions have also spoken out on several occasions against taking this step. In November of last year, Pepe Álvarez, general secretary of UGT, criticized the fact that the reform was not consulted in social dialogue. “If we did not approve it in the previous labor reform it is because there was no agreement. It would be much more advisable if Spain could have a collective bargaining law to avoid overlaps,” Álvarez said then.
“We have nothing against regional agreements, but it is not acceptable for the Workers’ Statute to be modified in something as sensitive as collective bargaining without even talking about it with the agents involved in negotiating the agreements,” Unai Sordo stated. , general secretary of CCOO last January.
