More than 70 demonstrations tour Spanish cities this Wednesday for the Labor Day. The unions General Workers’ Union (UGT) and Workers’ Commissions (CCOO) take to the streets under the motto “For full employment: shorter hours, better salaries”, to ask the Government for more progress on the political and social agenda.
The focus has been on improving working conditions and defense of a reduction in working hours that does not imply a salary cut. “It is time to generate jobs, but not just anyone will do,” Sordo said in the manifesto that was read at the end of the demonstration in Madrid.
Thus, it is committed to “escape from the old, which is exploitation, low salaries and endless hours”, and has valued other measures such as the increase in the SMI and the reduction of temporary employment. “We are not satisfied, we want more, we want a reduction in working hours by law. “That people work less, maintaining salaries, to live better”Sordo pointed out.
It is worth remembering that both unions are negotiating with CEOE and the Executive for a reduction in working hours to 37.5 hours per week by 2025without salary reduction and gradually, that is, dropping first to 38.5 hours this year.
This goes along the lines of achieving the full employment, something that for the CCOO leader is achievable in the country. To this end, he has called for the deployment industrial and sectoral development policiesa mobilize public investment “which in turn mobilizes private investment,” and to take advantage of the change in energy model to attract productive investment. “There is money to boost investment,” she noted, “and public resources must be used for that productive investment.”
Like Deaf, the general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has advocated reducing the working day so that it reaches, above all, workers in the most vulnerable situation. “Those 37.5 hours, which are on the way to 32 hours, have to help us move forward, and we want them. We want to work less to live better, if they get upset, worse for them,” Álvarez remarked in reading the manifesto after the demonstration.
Previously, in an interview on National Radio, Álvarez He also referred to the growth of GDP in Spain above the European average (0.7% in the first quarter and 2.4% year-on-year, according to the most recent data), but he put the emphasis on inequality . “Our country is growing a lot, but we must better distribute wealth that is being generated,” he stressed, after pointing out the May 1 demonstrations as “a great opportunity” to demand a improvement in “democratic levels”. “Let us be aware that the achievements must not only be achieved, but maintained and fought so that they are not taken away from us,” he said.
Likewise, the demonstrations of this May Day have been marked by other demands of a political nature, such as the request for an end to aggression by Israel towards Palestine and democratic regeneration of the Government of Spain.
Las Mañanas de RNE with Íñigo Alfonso – Sordo y Álvarez: “We must improve people’s living conditions” – Listen now
Díaz and Montero commit to reducing the working day
Shortly before the start of the demonstration in Madrid, at 12:00 p.m., Gran Vía brought together union leaders with the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, and the first vice president of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero.
In front of the media and those attending the march, Díaz has committed to reducing the working day without reducing salaries, a “key” measure – he said – to “distribute productivity, benefits and working time.” “We need time to live better, not get sick, live with dignity, think and spend time with our people,” he exclaimed.
This is one of the policies that were included in the coalition government pact between PSOE and Sumar, which has also been reneged María Jesús Montero: “The reduction of working hours is a cry and we are going to make it possible.”
Both ministers have spoken about raising salaries and protecting the working class, about which Yolanda Díaz has reported her intention to reform dismissal in Spain“something that Europe asks of us.”
After the rallies in support of Pedro Sánchez and “democracy” this weekend, this word has crept into the speeches on May 1 on multiple occasions. “We are defending democracy and the first actor is the class unions, which are here today. Democracy is the strikes and the working people,” Díaz praised at the end of his speech. “Long live the working class, long live the men and women who support democracy!” cried Montero, who has further criticized the opposition and the “mud machine that tries to keep us from talking about the problems of the citizens”.
In this regard, the leaders of both organizing unions have aligned themselves with the progressive coalition government in their speeches to the media at the beginning of the march. Thus, they have criticized the “harassment” and demanded that it be the “popular sovereignty” expressed in the Congress of Deputies that decides the composition of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPG).
Thousands of people demonstrate in Barcelona and Madrid
10,000 people in the Madrid demonstration, which attracts much of the attention because it brings together union leaders and the most important figures in the Government, but Workers’ Day has been claimed in many other cities in Spain. 5,000, according to the Urban Guard, and 10,000, according to the organizers CCOO and UGT, have participated in the march in Barcelonawhich has started in Plaza Urquinaona headed with a banner also for full employment, shorter working hours and higher salaries, reports the Efe agency.
May 1st coincided this year with the election campaign in Catalonia, for what could be seen in the demonstration of the main candidates, with the exception of Carles Puigdemont. Yes, the president of the Generalitat and ERC candidate, Pere Aragonès, the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, and the head of the Comuns Sumar list, Jessica Albiach, have attended. Instead of the former president Puigdemont, number six on the Junts+ lists, Enaatu Domingo, has come.
In Valencia, some 5,000 people have participated in the demonstration for International Workers’ Day, according to the Government Delegation. In the march, in addition to full employment and salary improvements, “the genocide suffered by the Palestinian people” has been denounced, reports Efe, criticism of the Israeli Government that has also been heard in Madrid and Barcelona. The latter, in fact, was attended by former mayor Ada Colau wrapped in a Palestinian scarf.
In Murcia, on May 1, it mobilized some 2,000 people despite the rain. And in Coruña, UGT and CCOO estimate the attendance at 5,000, which the Local Police puts at a thousand. In Galicia, in any case, the majority union is CIG (the Galician Intersyndical Confederation), which has called for demonstrations in 16 municipalities throughout the autonomy.
Reduce working hours to improve living conditions
The two majority unions are negotiating with CEOE and the Executive of Pedro Sánchez said reduction of working hours to 37.5 hours per week by 2025, without salary reduction and gradually, dropping first this year to 38.5 hours.
Pepe Álvarez (UGT) has expressed in RNE his willingness to negotiate the terms with the employers and has assured that the reduction in legal working time “does not negatively affect companies, but quite the opposite.” However, he has expressed concern about the possible effect of political polarization on social dialogue: “I think that this situation of instability that we are experiencing, of political tension, It doesn’t help.”
Unai Sordo (CCOO) has been somewhat more optimistic, assuring that “there is room” for reducing the working day, an advance that he considers “necessary to improve working conditions and, therefore, to improve people’s living conditions.” Likewise, he has linked it to a change in the “competition model of Spanish companies”, which is based on better systems and processes with the help of technology, in the face of “low salaries, long hours and precariousness as a labor norm.”
Other demands on Workers’ Day include reaching an agreement with the Ministry of Social Security on activity coefficients and mutual insurance companies, reforming the public multiple-effect income indicator (IPREM, which serves as a reference for the allocation of aid and subsidies based on income), promote an industrial policy and seek a solution to the increase in housing prices.
“We have a very serious problem of tension in the places where there is more employment, because many times the salary It’s not even enough to pay for housing.. There is very important work to be carried out there, because for us 10 or 8% unemployment is not full employment,” declared the general secretary of UGT on RNE.