labour reform

The management of Barcelona-based Almirall pharmaceutical multinational and trade unions have signed an agreement on Monday, reducing the initially planned number of laid-off employees from 250 to 180. The document, which has mostly been ratified in production and research centres in Greater Barcelona as well as by the marketing network, also provides specific compensations for the workers aged 55 years and over, and the maximum compensations set by the law for the rest of the laid-off staff. According to the General Workers Union (UGT), 30% of the laid-off employees will correspond to voluntary redundancies, which will be proportionally distributed among the different groups of workers.

There were 630,932 people registered as unemployed with the Catalan Public Employment Service. It is the third consecutive month with an unemployment drop. In Spain, unemployment decreased by 30,113 in May, leaving the total number of people without a job and looking for a new position at 4,714,122. In absolute terms, Catalonia is among the Autonomous Communities where unemployment decreased the most in May.

The President of the European Central Bank, whose Governing Council met in Barcelona on May 3rd, praised the Spanish Government’s “significant effort” made in a “very short period of time” to approve structural reforms. However, Mario Draghi, asked Spain “to persevere” in the strategy based on austerity and accomplish further reforms. The ECB’s President emphasised Europe’s need to adopt measures strengthening economic growth but without abandoning the principles of austerity. Draghi recommended continuing to reduce public spending in order to control the deficit. As expected, the ECB is maintaining the interest rate at 1%.

This advisory body dependent on the Catalan Government affirms that two aspects of the Labour Reform Law, recently approved by the Spanish Government, go against the Spanish Constitution. Furthermore, the report also highlights three elements that invade the Catalan Government’s jurisdiction. The four Left-Wing Catalan parties that requested the assessment one month ago are pushing for the reform to be brought to the Constitutional Court. CiU, who runs the Catalan Government, hopes to modify these aspects through parliamentary negotiations.

The General Strike on March 29th ended without significant changes in the Spanish Government’s Labour Reform, but with a clear acknowledgement that there is growing social anger. The strike was unevenly supported in Catalonia. Unions talked about sector strike participation ranging between 97% and 57% and the Catalan Government about strike participations ranging between 24% and 10%. Minimum services worked as planned, without any significant incidents. Demonstrations took place in the main Catalan cities, with the largest in Barcelona. Isolated violent incidents were the only negative parts of what was a relatively calm day.

Catalan trade unions send out opening salvo in protest against government policy on run up to European general strike on September 29th