August 19, 2022 9:30 am
Spain could be the first European country to institute leave for employees who have periods that are too painful to work. In view of the parliamentary debate, however, the left parties in power are divided.
The provision has not yet been definitively adopted. But the minister of equality of the Spanish government Irene Montero has already greatly cheered: “I am very proud of the fact that we will be the first European country to start talking about a problem that, until now, was a taboo, caused shame and it said a lot about the loneliness of women ”. And the head of Podemos (critical left) added: “This is progress in terms of rights, because it is no longer considered normal to go to work in pain and put an end to the stigma, shame and silence associated with menstruation”.
After a council of ministers in May, the Spanish executive led by Pedro Sánchez agreed to add to a bill, the main objective of which is to allow minors aged 16 and 17 to be able to abort without parental consent, an article on menstrual leave that could make history. Now the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in Madrid will have to discuss it.
Full salary
What does the text foresee? In case of pain caused by menstruation considered “disabling” for work purposes, employees, without any criteria of seniority, will be entitled to sick leave, renewable from month to month. Initially this leave was not supposed to last more than three days. In the end, a maximum duration was not foreseen.
According to the scheme envisaged by the draft law, it is up to the general practitioner not only to assess the degree of pain of dysmenorrhoea to ascertain whether or not there is “temporary incapacity”, but also to establish the number of days of leave, which can therefore be more than three.
The cost of this work stoppage will be covered entirely by social security and not by the employer. It is this last point that represents a real novelty. Today a woman who is absent from work due to painful menstruation suffers a salary cut (she is not paid for the first three days of absence and starting from the fourth day she receives 60 percent of what is due to her). From now on she will no longer be like this.
Since its formation in January 2020, the Sánchez government has not stopped splitting up in debates on equality between men and women
In an interview with El Diario Toni Morillas, director of the Institute of Women – a structure linked to the ministry of equality – specifies that this measure concerns all women and not only those who have been diagnosed with a gynecological disease such as endometriosis .
Before being adopted in the council of ministers in May, this measure was the subject of a tug-of-war between the two coalition parties, the socialists on the one hand and the coalition ministers Unidas Podemos on the other.
The first vice president of the government, the socialist Nadia Calviño, said she was skeptical and warned that, while reaffirming the executive’s commitment in favor of the struggle for equality between men and women, “she would never accept the measures that risked to provoke the stigmatization of women ”.
A statement to which has responded Yolanda Diazsecond vice president of the government and probable candidate of the critical left in the 2023 elections: “To stigmatize [le donne] it is the lack of sensitivity to the differences between men and women. The world of work is not neutral ”.
The debate on menstrual leave has therefore taken place within the executive, part of which considers it a social achievement and another as a “stigma” that will complicate the integration of women into the world of work a little more. . To those who point out that this measure could represent a brake on hiring, Podemos reminds that it is the state, thanks to the resources of the social security system, and not the employer, that bears the costs of the provision.
The opposition of the People’s Party (PP, right) has remained rather silent in this debate. If Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Madrid region, located far to the right, declared that “the only rule she cares about is that of three” (rule in Spanish it means menstruation), the new president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo ironized on the absence in his opinion of a real change and on the divisions within the executive: “In the end it is the doctor who decides and not the second vice president, against the opinion of the first vice president “.
The InfoLibre newspaper (partner of Mediapart in Spain) also documented the extent to which this measure also divides the trade unions: the Ugt, the second Spanish confederation rather close to the PSOE, expresses doubts about a measure that “focuses once again on women ”with the risk of marginalizing them in professional life, while the Ccoo (Comisiones obreras, workers’ commissions), the first trade union in the country, supports the measure.
Since its formation in January 2020, the Sánchez government has not stopped splitting up in debates on equality between men and women, with lines of opposition moving within the government team. In 2020, the socialists had published a text that criticized the right to “sexual self-determination” as part of the debate on the bill supported by Unidas Podemos on transgender people.
The PSOE has also initiated a reform of the penal code that affects the clients of prostitutes, this time causing divisions within the Unidas Podemos coalition and criticism, by the radical left, of the abolitionist position on prostitution expressed by Irene Montero.
Even more surprisingly, the bill approved by the Council of Ministers in May no longer contains the measures for the abolition of the VAT on feminine hygiene products, considered essential, initially envisaged. Yet this was a point of the 2020 coalition agreement between PSOE and Unidas Podemos. Toni Morillas of the Women’s Institute continues to hope that this measure will be adopted before the end of the mandate, expected at the end of 2023.
In any case, the Italian precedent calls for caution. In 2017, four deputies of the Democratic Party (Pd, center-left) had filed a bill that established a menstrual leave of up to three days a month for employed women, 100 percent covered. The text never found a majority. Returning to Spain, the calendar of parliamentary debates on this issue, which will certainly take place in the autumn, has not yet been announced.
(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)
This article appeared in the French online newspaper Mediapart.